When my sister and I had babies only three weeks apart we never thought
of nursing each others baby.   Later when I went to work for WIC, I
enjoyed working with some women in a town where polygamy was the
religious way of life.  I found that wet nursing also seemed okay with
them.  One mom won a cruise with her husband.  She left her five month
infant at home with formula but made arrangements to have her nursed
twice a day by a close friend or relative so she wouldn't forget how to
nurse.   Mom rented a pump to keep up her milk supply while she was
gone.  When mom returned home baby returned to full breastfeeding and
completely refused bottles.  Another mom was nursing twins when her
sister-wife (another wife of her husband) had a baby with medical
problems who was flown to a larger hospital.  Since the mother of the
hospitalized infant was to ill to make the trip to pick up the baby 300
miles away, the mother of twins went with the father.  When they arrived
at the hospital the mother of twins wanted to breastfeed the baby, to
relieve her fullness but was told she would have to give formula.
However on the way home she breastfed the baby.   Another time I saw a
girl whose mother had a baby after the daughter at 16 gave birth, nurse
her half-sister.   The last instance of wet nursing was very interesting
to me.  The women in this town give birth at a midwifery clinic with
very little intervention.  One woman told me that someone who wanted her
labor to progress more rapidly nursed a newborn of her sister wife
during labor to increase the oxytocin.

Well I'm making no recommendations here.  I now live in Phoenix where
anyone who heard these stories would probably think I had a very vivid
imagination.  These women in a small town were rather isolated and I
didn't agree with their lifestyle but they were my friends.   I sure
miss the good breastfeeding rates that I had when I was working with
them.

Judy Goodall, DTR, IBCLC