> Date:    Wed, 9 May 2007 15:31:07 +0100
> From:    Morgan Gallagher <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: If she can gestate, she will lactate.
>
>
> Does anyone have a cite, or a site, with this British wet-nurse  
> info on it?
> Having mentioned it myself a few times, I'd like a reference for  
> it.  Hence
> why I'm mentioning it openly, rather than in email.  A site would  
> be cool -
> although a cite will do!  (As I work online, sites and links are  
> far more
> use than cites to print material.)
>


Morgan asked for the citation of the British wet nurse.  It is  
described in Gabrielle Palmer's book, "The Politics of  
Breastfeeding."  I have here the 1993 edition, and it is on page 160  
under the heading, "Wet Nursing as an Economic Function" in the  
chapter titled "A Gallop Through History."  Here is the section:

"One of the most remarkable wet-nurses of all time was surely Judith  
Waterford.  In 1838 she was written up in both medical and lay  
papers.  She celebrated her eighty-first birthday by demonstrating  
that she could still squeeze from her left breast, milk that was  
'nice, sweet, and not different from that of young and healthy  
mothers.'  Judith was married at the age of twenty-two, and for the  
next fifty years supplied milk to babies.  She fed six children of  
her own, eight nurslings, and many children of her friends and  
neighbours.  In her prime she produced two quarts of breastmilk  
unfailingly every day, but admitted sorrowfully that after the age of  
seventy-five she could not have managed to breastfeed effectively  
more than one infant at a time. (From I. Digby and B. Mathias, "The  
Joy of the Baby," 1969.)"

Further information about this source of Digby and  Mathias isn't given.

The same story is mentioned in "Milk, Money, and Madness: The Culture  
and Politics of Breastfeeding" by Naomi Baumschlag and Dia Michels,  
Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1995, page 47.

Of course, many factors go into the ability to initiate and maintain  
lactation.  Judith's ability doesn't mean just anyone can do it, and  
in those days they didn't measure thyroid function, prolactin levels,  
etc.  to see what was going on.  But at least in this one instance it  
seems it was possible.


Anne Altshuler, RN, MS, IBCLC, LLL Leader Reserve
Madison, WI, USA
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