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]