> I would appreciate if Kathy D.
>has anything to say on this "sensitive" issue.

Situations where a woman nurses a child not her own biological child are
very common in a number of cultures around the world.  Often, the
"wet-nurse" is the child's grandmother or a co-wife of the biological mother
(they share a husband, the babies share a father).  Other times, it is a
more distant relative or just a neighbor or friend.  In a number of
cultures, the way men become related to their children is by the
transmission of a white fluid (semen), and the way women become related to
their children is by the transmission of a white fluid - milk!  This is a
belief of the Bambara people of Mali I do research with, as well as many
others.  You can "read all about it" in my article "More than Nutrition:
Breastfeeding in Urban Mali."  This is published in the journal Medical
Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 2, No. 2, June 1988, pp. 172-183.  Because
kinship ties are made by the transfer of breast milk, then all children
become related to any woman who breastfeeds them, and all children who
breastfeed from the same woman are related to one another for the same
reason.  Similar beliefs have been reported for Haiti, for Papua New Guinea,
for eastern European/western Asian countries stretching from the Balkans to
Myanmar, and for the Bedouin of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

I would be *extremely* interested in hearing about well-documented cases
(not "my sister once told me about a co-worker of a friend of hers......")
of cross-feeding of a child by its grandmother or other relative in
situations where the mother was still alive and nursing the child also (that
is, not where the mother has died or is too sick).  Please send by private
e-mail to [log in to unmask]  I will keep all responses strictly confidential.

Thanks.



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Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email: [log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352