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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

114 replies

NobodySpecial · 07/02/2012 20:28

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)...

OP posts:
animula · 07/02/2012 21:11

I'm now thinking about how much we would charge for this service? £30,000? That's a figure calculated on nannying (because this would be 12 hour care per day minimum, assuming wet-nurse can express enough for night-feeds). Would it be in the baby's home? I would imagine so. So you'd need to have your own children either with you or be able to arrange for some (low-cost) child-care for them that doesn't cancel out your wage.

That would put it out of the reach of all but the very wealthy in this country or be relying on a background situation of no welfare state provision that means we don't have to sell our bodies and labour for rock-bottom prices/food and board.

OP - what was your sil's friend's set-up? I'm curious.

LivingDead · 07/02/2012 21:11

Don't see the problem with it, as far as screening goes, I imagine that the wet nurse would have been screened when she was pg? I can't imagine many people would bf if they knowingly had a transferable disease.

If I was in that position and had loads of milk I would be happy to be paid to sit and breastfeed any amount of babies Grin

animula · 07/02/2012 21:15

... and I have to say, I also think that being screened for transferrable diseases, and/or certification that you have been "cleared" in screening tests taken at regular intervals would be something your employer would feel justified in demanding. And that's intrusive too.

sozzledchops · 07/02/2012 21:23

Well if Salma Hayek can do it....

Original poster
NobodySpecial · 07/02/2012 21:24

animula sorry don't know the details, but she was a very rich woman and the wet nurse was also a nanny to her 2 other children who were in private school. So I'm thinking it must have been costing her alot.

OP posts:
animula · 07/02/2012 21:29

sozzledchops - that's a lovely story.

for the record, personally, I've no issue with nursing other people's children, or even, in theory, another woman feeding mine. But, as it says in that article, I just really, really worry about the implications of wet-nursing. In all honesty, with the sort of social situation that might be the background story to its becoming a mainstream practice.

Booboostoo · 07/02/2012 21:33

It wouldn't bother me a lot. I was only thinking the other day how much more difficult motherhood is because I do it on my own and how much easier it would be if there were 10 mums and 10 babies so you could safely leave your baby for a short while to do other things. If someone else was available to help bf it would be brilliant!

I believe my mum was breastfed by a wet nurse because my gran didn't produce any milk (serious malnutrition following the second world war) and at the time it wasn't considered in any way unusual or posh.

IneedAbetterNicknameIn2012 · 07/02/2012 21:34

Ever since I had my 1st 7 years ago, my friend has said that if she ever has children, she will hire me as a CM and will pay me extra to have a baby at the same time so I can BF her DC when he/she is at mine. I have always assumed she is joking though!
I don't see a problem with it personally, although I couldn't bear to see another woman feeding my babies.

fanniadams · 07/02/2012 21:47

I couldn't feed any of my DC's but desperately wanted to :( I feel so guilty when my middle two are scratching like mad due to exczema ; inherited from me that I couldn't guard against through feeding myself. A wet nurse would have been a perfect solution, although I'm not sure we ever could have afforded her services! I may have felt a little jealousy at someone else being able to do that which I couldn't but like to think I would have got over myself quite quickly knowing my DC was benefitting. It may be unusal, but not weird IMO

coffeesleeve · 07/02/2012 21:51

For the wet nurse to be producing milk, wouldn't she need to have a child of nursing age herself? Was her own child getting any of her milk, or not?

Back in Ye Olden Days, wet nurses did have their own kids, but they were fed on pap, so their milk was saved for their employer's kids. Ditto dairy cows having their calves taken away from them!

Is it different nowadays?

LynetteScavo · 07/02/2012 21:59

fanniadams, don't beat yourself up about the eczema. DS1 got eczema when he was 4 months old and exclusively breast fed. I sat in the baby clinic listening to a HV telling a new mum "Im very surprised the Dr said it's eczema, really,it can't be eczema, I've never seen an exclusively breast fed baby with eczema!".

Oh yeah, well you are about to see 2 in 1 day, lady....

Oakmaiden · 07/02/2012 22:02

coffee - you can feed 2 children at the same time - breast milk is very supply and demand so if there is the demand from 2 babies then the supply will increase.

TheSecondComing · 07/02/2012 22:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

FrozenChocolate · 07/02/2012 22:10

Wasn't there a reporter in Africa who breastfed a child the same age as their own back in the UK? The African child was hungry, the reporter had milk...the ideal solution for all concerned. I don't think the baby's mother had her own milk and was very grateful to see her child fed.

RevoltingPeasant · 07/02/2012 22:12

Hmm this is really interesting to me: am a literary historian and work on C18th culture when this was very common.

It's not true to say that a wet nurse's child would not be fed, actually - might have happened, certainly, but not universal. In fact often a WN's child would be fed alongside the other child in a 'fostering' arrangement. There are some very moving accounts of grown women calling their old WNs 'my second mamma' and the like, and taking care of them in old age.

Also, it wasn't just for rich women. Plenty of poorer women who simply had to work bunged their child in with another nursing woman in the village. Those were the babies fed pap/ neglected, as the WN would be paid hardly anything as the mother's wages were so low.

The other thing is, quite a few rich women didn't want to send their children off to nurse, but had to due to husband's pressure. There is a mid-C18th nursing manual (by a man) which goes into a massive rant about the 'misplac'd Authority' of rich husbands who persuade their wives not to bf because it was seen as lower-class and 'slovenly'.

Actually one of the biggest factors was fashion - no nursing bras and women wore stays, which clearly didn't work well with bfing, so they had to wear deshabille when nursing and it was considered a bit slatternly.

joanofarchitrave · 07/02/2012 22:15

I would have loved to have had a wetnurse when ds was tiny. I was struggling so much with feeding and would have really liked to feel that he was being fed well at the time.

With hindsight, it would have been a poor idea until my own supply was established. So perhaps it's a good thing the option wasn't there, as I have no doubt I would have taken it if I could have.

lagrandissima · 07/02/2012 22:23

I remember reading a while ago that the World Health Organisation ranked another woman's breast milk second only to the mother's breast milk in terms of what is best for a new baby's health. I suppose in developing countries where it is harder to make up formula in sterile bottles and with clean water, it is literally a matter of life and death.

It is interesting how squeamish we can be - when something is totally culturally determined. A few centuries ago, wet nursing would have been de rigueur for women from the upper classes, enabling them to get on with the production of another heir.

When I was feeding my DSs I sometimes felt that I wanted to stick a boob in the mouth of another baby if I heard one crying. It's a natural instinct to give a child some comfort and nutrition. Or maybe I was a tad hormonal. I keep them under wraps these days Grin.

slowburner · 07/02/2012 22:27

I would have no issue with feeding my very small and new niece and nephew should I be asked for any reason, I have milk and happy to share. DD might have kittens about it though!

As for someone feeding my child, if I was away or unable to fee her I would rather she had breast milk rather than formula.

yABU

MamaMaiasaura · 07/02/2012 22:28

YABU although as a bfing mum I wonder how it would work as dd likes to be bfed to sleep and wants me physically close 24/7 as did my ds's.

joanofarchitrave · 07/02/2012 22:31

It's also common in some agrarian societies for the grandmothers to still be lactating, while the mothers need to be working to produce food, so the MIL does the daytime feeding. Now that would be a few threads to remember.

brdgrl · 07/02/2012 22:55

As for how it would work if bfeeding one's own baby, that's really not that big of an issue, presumably. Ask any bf-ing mother of twins! One can definitely nurse more than one baby at the same time, and if established early enough, supply should regulate itself...

MamaMaiasaura · 07/02/2012 23:19

My query over how it would work was that if it isn't your own dc, bit that child craved you like my babies crave me and bfeed not just for food but for emotional nourishment and comfort. It's not like you give them a feed for 10 minutes and then that's that. Sometimes they nurse for literally hours.

Bogeyface · 07/02/2012 23:44

I couldnt care less either way about the wet nursing, but I am wondering why she bothered having a baby if the nanny will take care of it night and day. If the mother isnt even going to feed it, why have the child at all?!

Rooble · 07/02/2012 23:57

Can't see what's wrong with it. I was made to feel appalling by other women when DS was born as I didn't bf him (am on medication) and there was a tremendous need by random unknown people to judge me. Would have loved him to be able to have some human milk instead of cow and gate...

Tryharder · 08/02/2012 00:08

I would quite happily have bf someone else's baby and wouldn't have minded another woman bf my baby. Would have no problem with it at all.