>About wet-nurses, whose charges went from one hired baby to the next, Chris
>Mulford writes:
>
><< And if her charges didn't thrive, she wouldn't have had any work! >>
>
>Chris, I am not sure this is true.  Certainly the institution of wet-nursing
>as a whole continued for centuries after it was very well known that many,
>many more wet-nursed babies died.   The result was a cultural assumption that
>well, babies die sometimes -- stuff happens.   Or in other words, the
>standard for "if your charges didn't thrive" might well be far below what we
>would consider acceptable.


Elisheva, you're spot-on.

Looking at history to support infant feeding practice gets us nowhere.

Gabrielle Palmer points out that was also well-known that the serial
pregnancies that happened to mothers who did not breastfeed were a direct
result of not bf - and it was known that serial pregnancy was derimental to
women's health, to the safety of childbirth,  and indeed, to infant health.
Women's health was not considered to be important enough to worry about -
they were breeding machines.

We have now lost that knowledge that bf is linked to health of mother and
baby, but of course we no longer need the knowledge because new advances
(formula milk and surgical birth) have solved the problems for us ....(NOT)

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

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