To feel a bit uncomfortable about someone actually using a Wet Nurse for their baby in this day and age?

[NobodySpecial]

Basically when my DD was born, my SIL told me about a woman in her daughter's school who had a baby around the same time and she had a nanny/wet nurse for him who looked after him all day and nursed him aswell.

I find this weird. I understand that she may have had problems with producing milk etc, but still...hiring someone to feed your baby physically? What about milk banks? Or if she didn't have problems with milk production then what about expressing?

I always thought this was something that happened in the olden days and didn't occur anymore, but I was obviously wrong. It would make me uncomfortable if anyone tried to nurse my baby, the biggest exception being my Mum, but she passed away a long time ago so that leaves no one...even my sister or close relative (not that I know anyone who still breastfeeds)...

I would wonder how the wet nurse has managed to produce the 'right' milk though
It's initially colostrum, but after that it's more or less the same allowing for day-to-day variation. It changes (nutrients become more concentrated) with older toddlers as they cut down, but talking 2 years+

FrozenChocolate - good for you both. I was very ill with a bug before Christmas and DS had to be brought to me for feeds and I had to steel myself not to be sick until he was finished. I wish a friend could have done it for me.

It's not a bad idea I think but isn't there a risk of hiv transmission and other nasties? I'm pretty ignorant about it though so I may well be wrong.

I don't see the problem. Isn't the most important thing that a baby is fed and healthy regardless of who supplies that milk, be that a woman or Cow and Gate?

Doesn't bother me at all. I might have felt a bit weird about seeing my tiny baby being fed by someone else but there are times during tge day I would happily let someone else feed my 19mo while I did other stuff (stuff like not having Dd's fingers up my nose or tsing to pull my other nipple off).

I would always prefer for my dcs to have human milk than formula.

I'd find it difficult because it's too close to my boundaries of what is exploitation and what is legitimate waged work - always a nebulous boundary.

Wet nurses were common when there was a huge disparity of income between the well of and ... the others. so you could afford servants if you were well off, to deal with the manual stuff of life, and tend to your body's needs and detritus, including actually being able to buy a woman's bodily products.

I think I'm more alarmed about what it might say about the siparity of income between the two women.

Hmm....

I'n a perfect world I would breast feed my own child.

If I couldn't produce milk the next ideal would be organic human breast milk from a woman who had never had contact with any harmful substance ever, fed by me though some sort on non harmful ergonomic teat.

Failing that some Aptamil and lots of hugs.

The thought of someone actually breast feeding my baby makes me uncomfortable. Unless my baby were about do die, for example in a natural disaster. Then I would be eternally grateful.

I would be fine with it.

It's easier to feed directly than to faff about with expressing, sterilising, storing, heating, etc

Each to their own but I wouldn't want my baby to be fed by a wet nurse because of the intimacy of it. I wouldn't feel comfortable for my baby to have that kind of close bond with an employee especially in the early days when all babies do is feed. How would the mother get a chance to bond with the baby under these circumstances, wouldn't the wet nurse be there all the time getting in the way.

However when I breastfed I would have been happy for a close friend or family member to BF my baby if for some reason I was away from DD and delayed and she was hungry. I would also have been happy to BF my friends or families babies in and emergency but just not every feed.

The main taboo (AFAIK) around wetnursing is that, as the rich ladies din't want their babies to share the wetnurse, the wetnurse's own baby would often be left to die.

That aside, I think it's a great idea. If this service were available here, it might have convinced me to go back to work earlier, not least because I would have needed to know that my baby was being cuddled a lot - not sure that is the case often enough in nurseries.

Why not? would be my view.

if i couldn't feed my child due to post-birth incapacity, my first choice would be for my sister to do it until i was ok.

other than that i'd rather do it myself.

This is very common in some other cultures today (I know it is done in some African cultures and also the rastafarian culture). For some of these women, they see breast milk as the best way to feed the baby, and if the baby needs feeding and the mother isn't around, or feeling ill or otherwise engaged, well its not rocket science, to them its the best and only way.

Not saying I would personally be up for it, but only in western society is it seen as weird and gross.

Many of you are assuming you'd be in the position of paying for a wet nurse.

How would you feel about this being your full-time job? Or something your daughter might aspire to do in order to,say, pay her way through university? Or make cash if she is a single parent?

no weirder than feeding it another animals milk fortified with fish bits.

People will pay for this runs off to get expresser out

Also, in terms of the bonding aspect of breastfeeding, I know that in some cultures (well I can only really speak for the rastafarian culture which I know a little bit more about) they get that special bond with their babies through other ways, like co-sleeping, bathing with their babies, sling, special songs and time with mum and her baby. The babies know which women is their "mother", and have a special bond woth her regardless of who has been feeding them mostly that day

There are worse jobs.

If I had lots of milk, and I wasn't depriving my own child, then I honestly wouldn't have a problem with it.

It's only milk. It's only feeding a baby. I don't have any strong emotions around it. It seems totally practical to me.

People do pay for this, oldraver. There's a chapter in Gena Corea's THe Mothe Machine on the market in the US.

By the way - Women like you, who donate breastmilk, are totally -deserving.

I wouldn't have had a problem with another woman feeding my babies and I would have fed another woman's baby if she and the baby were fine with it.

Don't see what the issue is really.

Which do you think an ebf baby would prefer? Bf from someone other than their mum or a bottle of formula? I do understand why the idea feels strange but surely much better for the baby

Why on earth does this bother you so much? It is not 'ewww' , it is lovely; even if it is not for everyone - if one supports breastfeeding as the ideal, why would one not support this?

I would do it for a friend if they wanted it because they were prevented from breastfeeding their child themselves and wanted them to have the benefits (not just nutritional) of breastfeeding.

anyway, like breastfeeding or bottlefeeding choices generally - if you don't think it is for you, don't do it and try not to judge.

I guess I would be concerned that if a woman is lactating then she must have had a baby herself for whom that milk was destined, and what is happening to that baby? I suppose if milk doesn't change (so as to be inadequate for a newborn) until baby is 2+ then it's possible for a wet nurse to feed her own baby exclusively for a year, then spend a year nursing a new baby (plus her own if she wanted) - but I think animula's point about potential exploitation is very valid.

but alot of you are talking about a one off situation where you're hypothetically ill...ebf by a wet nurse would mean having to pass your baby over in the middle of the night, EVERY NIGHT or not even sleep with him/her so he could feed....I couldn't do that.