Fascinating stuff!

There's confirmatory detail in a paper called Mozart and medicine in 
the eighteenth century - on the web (JS Jenkins).

Constanze was literally not permitted by Wolfgang to breastfeed. He 
wrote to his father saying he wanted his children brought up on 
water[apparently he meant gruel, or bread in water/beer, not 
literally just water], as his parents did for him and his sibs (he 
and his sister were the only surviving children among seven siblings).

Against his wishes, Wolfgang was persuaded to let the firstborn go to 
a wet nurse, but the baby died aged four weeks.

These stories are interesting. People in 18th and 19th century Europe 
knew fine well breastfeeding was a Good Thing. They knew that 
country/peasant children were robust and more likely to survive 
infancy, and they knew why. They saw with their own eyes the terrible 
infant mortality in the cities - more than 50 per cent in many 
places. They knew breastfeeding was likely to save them from this, 
and even those who could afford a wet nurse sometimes eschewed this 
choice.

The social pressure on middle/upper class, urban women was such that 
they simply did not breastfeed and this was the norm.

In the UK, mid-19th century, Queen Victoria like the rest of her 
social class, did not breastfeed (though her children all survived 
infancy - they were all wet nursed). She sneered at and mocked her 
daughters, when they did so.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK



>This morning I attend a fascinating lecture at the Tikotin Japanese 
>Museum in Haifa, part of a series on the history of composers and 
>musicians, given by a brilliant musicologist Dr. Roie Aloni.
>He talked about the more melancholic music of Mozart and played a 
>piece he composed after the death of one of his sons.  Mozart lost 
>four of his six children in infancy.  The lecturer went on to 
>describe how in that era so many infants died in their first year. 
>He said that breastfeeding was considered "vulgar" and women like 
>Constantina, Mozart`s wife and Mozart himself did not want her to 
>expose herself in public or at home.  However whereas the wealthy 
>and the aristocracy hired "wet nurses" people like the Mozart family 
>could not afford this so fed their babies on entirely unsuitable 
>substitutes, resulting in so many babies dying of malnutrition. He 
>added that fortunately now there has been a return to breastfeeding 
>and using wonderful body language he talked about the wonderful bond 
>between mothers and babies as well as the nutritional advantages. 
>He is a brilliant musicologist but I loved him even more for that 
>little gem!
>Wendy Blumfield
>NCT Trained Tutor Prenatal Teacher/Breastfeeding Counsellor
>Former President Israel Childbirth Education Centre

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