Hi everyone.  I found an interesting paper today, in a journal called
Journal of Social History.  The paper is "The Cultural Significance of
Breastfeeding and Infant Care in Early Modern England and America," 1994,
vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 247-269.  The author is Marylynn Salmon.

It talks about how motherhood and breastfeeding were viewed in the 17th and
18th centuries in England and the U.S. and contains many many quotes about
the medicinal uses of breast milk for treating all sorts of ailments, as for
feeding sick adults.

One hysterical part quotes a medical text on how often babies should have
their diapers changed -- every day at 7 am, noon, and 7 pm, and a midnight
change would be nice, but not necessary.

Some of the advice sounds very familiar (in a good way) and brings home the
old adage "The more things change the more they stay the same".  Such as
this advice on frequency of feeding from a book published in 1672 (more than
300 years ago):

"As to the time and hour it needs no limits, for it may be at any time,
night or day, when he [the baby] hath a mind; but let him have it rather
little and often, than too much at a time, that his little Stomach may the
better concoct and digest it without vomiting."

She also talks about how "insufficient milk" was mainly a problem of the
upper classes, who followed doctors' advice not to feed from the breasts
until the lochia had ceased flowing (the baby meanwhile was fed by a wet
nurse).  Women who were poor couldn't afford doctors or wet nurses and thus
*had* to feed their babies themselves.  She says: "Here we may have an
explanation for commentators' assertions that it was primarily elite women
who found their milk supplies insufficient to meet the needs of their infants."

Interesting article. . . .also includes horrendous descriptions of mothers
with cracked, bleeding, and torn-off nipples.  Not for the faint-hearted!  ;)

Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Texas A&M University
e-mail to [log in to unmask]