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Breast-Feeding Practices During Industrialisation 1800–1919 1
Published in Frank Falkner, Infant and Child Nutrition Worldwide:, 2021
Although medical advice throughout this period was that maternal breastfeeding, preferably to the age of nine months, was the best and only safe method of feeding, the recommended alternative if this was not possible changed during this time. In the early-19th century most doctors thought that a wet nurse should be employed (Burns, 1811; Haden, 1827; Roberton, 1827) but as the century progressed more and more advised that artificial feeding was possible, and in many cases preferable, if mothers could not or would not suckle their own children (Apple, 1987; Fildes, 1988; Golden, 1984). By the early-20th century both medical and popular books on infant feeding and child care devoted substantial sections to the theory and practice of artificial feeding and minimal space to wet nursing (Holt, 1907; Pritchard, 1904; Vincent, 1904). In many instances the attention paid to the advantages and especially the practice of breast-feeding was also much less than had been usual in the earlier period. Although this partly reflected the increased prevalence of artificial feeding in society and the consequent need for accurate information, it also gave both medical readers and mothers the impression that bottle feeding was much safer than was actually the case in many domestic circumstances. It was principally left to the members of the emergent specialty of public health to investigate and underline the resulting dangers to infant life.
Birth and post-natal period
Published in Nadia Maria Filippini, Clelia Boscolo, Pregnancy, Delivery, Childbirth, 2020
In the late modern age, due to the large numbers of abandoned babies, the foundling hospitals also sent more and more of them to external wet nurses, as the ones living in the hospitals were insufficient, thus giving peasant women an additional source of income.29 This expansion in wet nursing fed a vast market, making the wet nurse (balia in Italy, nodriza in Spain, nourrice in France) one of the most widely spread female workers in European history, even though the particular nature of this job, where what was sold was produced by the workers’ bodies, and was not a simple service, should not be forgotten.
“That is more excellent which preserveth health and preventeth sicknesse” 1
Published in James Kennaway, Rina Knoeff, Lifestyle and Medicine in the Enlightenment, 2020
As Verwaal’s examination of the records of Dutch chemists shows, the advice and appeals to women to breastfeed their babies in the eighteenth century were also based on extensive experimentation into the nature and composition of milk. This enabled authors to offer compelling new explanations for the importance of breast milk for the healthy development of infants, even if there was no comparable way of proving the contention that maternal breast milk was better than that of a wet nurse.
Promoting Optimum Nutrition During Infancy
Published in Comprehensive Child and Adolescent Nursing, 2019
In Charles Dickens’s novel Dombey and Son (Dickens, 1995) the main character’s wife dies shortly after giving birth to a son and he employs a wet nurse to feed the baby. Utilizing a wet nurse was perceived to be the safest choice when a mother was unable to feed her own infant for whatever reason. However, as an occupation wet nursing began to decline after the invention of bottles and formula milk toward the end of the 19th century. Society turned its back on wet nursing and artificial feeding began to be perceived as the best method of feeding an infant when a mother’s natural milk was not available (Stevens, Patrick, & Pickler, 2009)
Caesarean delivery associated with adverse breastfeeding practices: a prospective cohort study
Published in Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 2020
Phung Thi Hoang Nguyen, Colin W. Binns, Anh Vo Van Ha, Cong Luat Nguyen, Tan Khac Chu, Dat Van Duong, Dung Van Do, Andy H. Lee
Exclusive breastfeeding: babies receiving breastmilk only (including milk expressed or from a wet nurse) while giving no other food or liquid, not even water, with the exception of drops or syrups consisting of vitamins, mineral supplements or medicines.