Jayne Charlamb asks for the Yiddish for breastmilk. It would be
transliterated into English differently depending on what community of
Yiddish speakers you're in, but the pronunciation is "MAmeh-milkh",
"MAmes-milkh," or "MA-me(s)-MlL-ikh" with the "kh" being the gutteral sound
you hear when people toast "L'chaim." If you're writing it out in Yiddish
letters it would be spelled *mem-alef-mem-ayin-(samekh)-mem-yud-lamed-khof*.
If you're working with Yiddish speakers you might find the reference work
Pregnancy, Childbirth and Early Childhood: An English-Yiddish Dictionary, by
Mordkhe Schaechter, useful.

Jan Barger writes on the term "senile breasts": "Isn't that a horrid thing
to say about breasts?  Perhaps instead  of senile breasts, we should call
them 'decorative' when they are no longer functional." I laugh and wince at
this simultaneously. My aunt has four children and - like all the women in
our family except for my mother (thanks mom!) - never was able to succeed at
breastfeeding. Every time breastfeeding comes up in conversation she regales
us with the same story: "I tried with all my kids but I could never make any
milk. It turns out that mine are just there for decoration!" When her
daughter had a natural birth and breastfed like a champ from day one, my
aunt was awestruck. My cousin, god bless her, said, "Mom, I think you just
didn't have the support you needed."

Breasts that have nursed are the only ones considered to have biologically
matured. I think we should create our own term for a breastfeeding woman's
breasts in later life. Far from decorations, they are breasts that have put
in good service and finished the job! Maybe "emeritus" or "emeritae" is more
like it. :) According to Wikipedia, it comes from the Latin for "to earn
one's discharge by service." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emeritus]
April Rosenblum
...mother of a breastfed, Yiddish-speaking toddler, and just back from a
week-long, all-ages Yiddish retreat where I at first nervously nursed my 2.5
year old in public, and then was gratified to notice the snowball effect as
one mother after another beginning to openly nurse their toddlers for the
rest of the week.

Student of Lactation Consulting
Pathway 3 Intern, Pennsylvania Hospital
Preparing for IBLCE Exam 2012

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