To ask what people did before formula?

[Annabelleinapickle]

There's always a BF/FF debate but genuinely what did we do before formula existed? It worked fine then, people produced milk? Personally I think it's all the devices, unhealthy crap invented that has made our bodies less able.

I'm sure I'm opening myself up to a barrage of negativity (and that's why I don't usually post on these sites) but I wanted to highlight, and hopefully clarify, some points made on this thread (mainly for the original poster who seems to be asking a genuine question).
Before the 18th Century mothers breastfed, that's the top and bottom of it, and no babies didn't regularly die.....well not from breastfeeding anyway! Breastfeeding would have actually continued for much longer and weaning would have actually been later, not earlier.
In todays society between 2% and 4% of women 'physically' are unable to breastfed. A significant percentage of that is due to breast reduction surgery, breast augmentation or radiation therapy. All of these 'things' are relatively new practices so wouldn't have been an issue in 'times past' so the percentage will have been even lower then. If there was a problem for mothers then someone else would have fed the baby, sister, aunt, friend, someone else in the community.....it was 'the norm'.
Yes its true that 'rich people and royalty' would employ wet nurses but this wasn't because they were unable to breastfeed....it was because a shift in society deemed breastfeeding 'common'. Similar to the fact that 100 years ago having a tan was common, it meant you were poor and had to work outside. One reason why wealthy women carried parasols to keep the sun off their skin. Employing a wet nurse was a status symbol not a necessity!
These ideas filtered down and women started feeding their babies all sorts of concoctions, not because they couldn't physically breastfeed but because it was 'out of fashion'.
Also the Industrial Revolution meant that more women had to go out to work and had to look for an alternative to feed their babies. Lots of these women farmed their babies out to peasant women to wet nurse if they didn't have family/friends to do it.
In 1865 a chemist invented the first formula. It was very expensive and many women made up their own variations using evaporated milk, honey, cows milk, sugar etc.
In the early 19th century a third of all artificially fed babies under 1 died. Because of this there was a push for breastfeeding to be promoted to mothers again and an increase in feeding did lead to a reduction in infant mortality rates.
Unfortunately, trends in society and other factors have a huge influence on our decisions, as can be seen over the ages.
Formula companies used to 'work' with medical professionals and those professionals would be the people who would encourage mums to use a specific brand of formula. As more research was carried out and it became apparent that there were health risks to formula GPs etc recommended brands less. Also a decline in birth rates made formula companies look at other ways to make a profit and they started the aggressive advertising of formula milk to the general public, especially in developing countries, with catastrophic effects.
This is a relatively new 'problem' in the scheme of things where formula companies put profit over health and safety and it shouldn't be allowed!
This is NOT meant to be a pro breastfeeding / anti formula post, its just facts!
If women genuinely want to formula and are happy with that choice, or they've tried breastfeeding and decided that it wasn't for them then that is totally their choice. They shouldn't be made to feel guilty about it, not by society and not by themselves. The thing that makes me so sad is that many women seem to say that 'they really wanted to breastfeed but couldn't' ! There lies the problem. I am definitely not blaming mothers for this but I am blaming the 'people' out there that didn't/couldn't/wouldn't give the mothers the correct information and support they needed and perpetuated the 'myth' that these mothers are incapable. Making these mothers feel that they have 'failed' and their bodies have failed them! Unfortunately, its easier for 'people', often Health Professionals, to say 'put them on a bottle'. They've 'solved' the problem and 'everyone' is fine!! It's much more difficult, and time consuming, to support a mum to breastfeed if she's finding it difficult. This can take hours, days, weeks or months of ongoing support.....which many health professionals just don't have. Mums are often told 'they aren't making enough milk, their milk hasn't come in, their baby is too big, their breasts are too small, some babies just don't like breastfeeding' and many more. I've heard them time and time again in life and on sites like these and it's such a shame.
WE should be given the correct support and information and WE should make a choice that suits us and our baby from the 'correct' information we have been given. WE should then be happy with our choice and not be made to feel guilty about it, whatever that choice may be. The problem is feeding is such an emotive subject and whether we are breast or formula feeding WE feel guilty for whatever reason.
Everyone makes different choices for different reasons throughout their life. It doesn't mean that everyone is going to be happy with that choice and agree with it but that shouldn't matter if you feel you are doing what is right for you and anyone else involved.

interesting post.

there was also an epidemic of artificially-fed baby deaths due to a certain kind of feeding bottle. The tubing was almost impossible to clean so the baby was fed contaminated liquid.

next time you are in the library, look up the 1911 census return for your family. It shows the number of children that have died from each household. Often sobering reading. I found about a great-aunt that died at 10 days from gastroenteritis.

from the ONS; 1911, 130 out of every 1000 babies born in England and Wales died in their first year. 2011 - 4.2 per 1000.

hygiene, vaccination, birth control (so there's enough food for all the children) and so on.

special

I was looking at my dad's paternal sides family tree. There were 11 siblings in my grandfathers generation who all but one lived to adulthood (1 was stillborn or died hours after birth it is unclear) born from mid 1920's onwards. But the generation before there had been 10 siblings born and only 3 lived adulthood, most dying before 5. That was quite a sobering read. As was the realisation that losses like that were not unusual for the time.

genius your post is absolutely spot on. Thank you.

Thank you genius - that's really interesting reading. My grandmother was totally unable to breastfeed - she'd suffered severe malnutrition during the war and we think her body just couldn't as a result. For my mum she did a condensed milk ancient sugar mix. By the time my aunts came along there was formula available on the NHS. I think my grandmother was incredibly grateful as she knew it would be better than the condensed milk trick!

My granny (who had 6 kids, my DF being the first) was a midwife and determined to BF when my dad came along in 1955...my dad wailed for days as her milk hadn't come in, so my grandad drove into town and bought a feeding bottle and dad was fed unpasteurised milk, fresh from their cow...she didn't try to BF any of the rest of them.
When my mum was pregnant with my eldest DBro, granny told her not to bother trying to breastfeed, so we were all formula fed.

It was a bit 'wordy', sorry. But once I'd started i couldn't stop lol

My Gran who is French was breast fed till she was three, if her mam couldn't do it then they were parred off on the nearest nursing relative. This worked as they had large family's and didn't migrate.

In todays society between 2% and 4% of women 'physically' are unable to breastfed. A significant percentage of that is due to breast reduction surgery, breast augmentation or radiation therapy

Depends what you mean by "physically unable". Yes I suppose if you think virtually constant feeding at 3 months, almost no sleep and not being able to leave the house is "physically able" then yes I was. Oh and of course the nausea induced by the release of oxytocin was probably just my imagination. The lack of putting on weight however was verified.

None of the factors you mentioned apply to me.

Genius - do you have any stats on infant mortality at the time? How many babies died or failed to thrive due to lack of milk, or succumbed to infection more easily as they were under nourished?

I was fed on condensed milk.

I feel for you op. I never produced masses of milk and felt really shit about it. Struggled on for 6 months with my first, but 2nd was prem, no sucking reflex, and expressing 8x a day with a prem newborn, an 18 month old and mastitis drove me to the point of madness. I cried on the phone to my gp relative who told me the best thing for babies is a happy mummy. Dd2 was henceforth bottle fed. She has never really been ill, and is every bit as bonny, bright and happy as her breastfed sister.

Breast is brilliant, if you are able, as much as you are willing and able to give. But formula is an amazing, life saving modern marvel, and something for which I am personally incredibly grateful. You are doing great op and your baby will turn out perfectly, wherever he gets his milk. Try not to worry x

I was fed on condensed milk too and weetabix at 6 weeks!

I'm really sorry to hear that LassWiTheDelicateAir , that must have been really difficult for you and 'no' I'm not saying that 'you' should have to 'put up' with that. It's obviously no good for you or your baby. But what I am saying is that the 'people' who are meant to be their to give you support/help/information, so you can decide what's right for you, often aren't doing that effectively. Either because they don't know, they are using outdated information or they just haven't got the time - all of which are unacceptable when we rely on these people and trust them. You should have never been allowed to carry on like this for 3 months! Constant feeding, baby not gaining weight and you being exhausted are 'not normal' for a 3 month old baby. 'Someone' should have spotted this early and 'helped' you. In the early weeks babies 'do' feed constantly, this is their way of increasing mums supply for the long term but this should ease around the 6 week mark. Even in the 'early days' babies should still be settled between feeds. All of the 'things' you've mentioned highlight that baby wasn't accessing the milk effectively, not that you weren't making enough milk. This IS NOT a criticism, but this should have been flagged in the early days (from the professionals that are meant to support you) and you should not have had to deal with these 'problems'. Also they should have given you tips to combat the nausea from Oxytocin release. This nausea can be significantly reduced by taking in more fluid, drinking water just before and during feeding and eating complex carbs just before feeding. Again, this IS NOT a criticism but this is what I was trying to highlight about not being given the correct information by the people we are meant to trust to know the answers. You may have still decided that you didn't want to breastfeed, and that's totally your choice, but you should have at least been given the correct support so YOU could make that choice and not be left feeling like that decision was taken out of your control.

Artus - I'm not exactly sure what you are asking me? Records on infant mortality started being kept in the 16th Century. You can search records, historical websites, a census from the times.......there's lots of ways to obtain this information and the stats for the time.
I'm NOT saying that infant mortality rates were lower, they weren't, but if you look at 'historical documents' there is a lot of information on there. Many babies died in the first 24/48 hours after birth, mainly due to infections, premature birth, complications of birth or poor hygiene/sanitation. This was true of the mothers too who would regularly die during or shortly after childbirth.
Another significant 'time' for babies/children to die would be around the time of weaning, again due to poor sanitation, dirty water and lack of hygiene. Often babies that were recorded of dying from malnutrition would have actually had chronic diahorrea (this would have also been listed in records/on death certificates), again this is a sign of infection, poor sanitation, lack of hygiene and not a complication of breastfeeding.
I'm not meaning to be argumentative or offend you in anyway so I hope I haven't. It just makes me sad sometimes that 'mums' are made to feel like failures when the professionals that are meant to be there to give correct, researched and evidence based info often don't and just keep perpetuating the myths. If people are told something enough times then they will eventually believe it and not question the source. I just think we should be supported more to make our own 'informed' choices, whatever they may be' rather than being 'forced' to make a choice, based on incorrect or outdated information, which seems to leave many mums feeling like they've failed .

I would like to add that in many cases professionals try hard, but the women around a mother who is trying to breastfeed can be very negative and a mother can feel she are fighting on too many fronts, both against the negativity of her family and coping with the inevitable teething pains involved in getting breastfeeding going. Then you sometimes have a baby's father who wants to have a turn at feeding the baby (sometimes instead of doing something that would actually be useful like engaging properly in running the home efficiently and effectively) and feels left out if not catered to..

In the case of older generations, any and all baby 'issues' can be attributed to breastfeeding. Often the older generation has concerns about how the house is going to pot and the husband is being neglected and has to cook or do his own laundry, how the mother is 'spoiling' a baby because breastfeeding involves more close contact primarily with the mother there is a good deal of sex-related squeamishness, never verbally acknowledged but nevertheless present; older women can be suspicious of the more frequent feedings necessary to establish and maintain breastfeeding in particularly the 'on-demand' element of breastfeeding can be horribly misconstrued as 'letting the baby ruin your life'/'making a rod for your own back', blah blah; shocked responses can greet the revelation of co-sleeping or baby sleeping in the parents' bedroom because getting up frequently for a breastfed baby is exhausting -- sometimes the older generation has concerns about a baby 'taking a husband's place'.

The general theme is sometimes that breastfeeding is self indulgence of a questionable kind on the part of the woman who tries it, that there are more important things she should be doing with her time. Very much 'woman, know your place'.

Genius - thanks for your post, spot on. And yes, formula can be life saving, but it has led to countless deaths around the world due to misinformation and being pushed in countries where people are unable to make it hygienically. I'd also like to add that malnourished women can (and I'm not saying it is always the case) produce milk. This happened in concentration and prison camps during WWII and was life saving for the babies involved.

Genius great post, many posters on hear have only been commenting on what has happened with breastfeeding in living memory. But to see what a true picture of breastfeeding before the industrial revolution happened. Genius has already said this which is great. Weaning often didn't happen until 8-9 months there are written records on this. Also one reason royalty used wetnurses was to produce as many children as possible. Breastfeeding naturally spaced children and many poor family's had less children then you would think. Wetnurses where introduction in the ruling classes to provide as many children as possible, given that many children didn't servie into adulthood. This was important for many families. Although the nation of being a high born female sounds great. Your job was to produce babies and give the risk in child birth, I think it's not such an appealing option.

If your really interested in the topic then you mite like to read 'The politics of breastfeeding'.

Genius your reply comes across as could have tried harder. I note you think I had "problems" and "things" I mentioned. Not real problems or things then ?

I was lied to by the utterly useless NCT "advisor " who was incapable of doing anything other than parrot breast is best. Ignored by the utterly useless health visitor who knew I was going back to work full time yet refused to give me any advice about how to switch to formula. Expressing was suggested- which was laughable. I had tried that - it simply meant I got no break at all. I loathed breast feeding. It was the most miserable 3 months of my life. Telling me I just needed more support is unbelievably trivialising. Why are you and the NCT women determined that all women can do it ?

I'm really sorry it came across like that [lasswithedelicatehair] ,it honestly wasn't meant to. But you are highlighting what i was trying to say. The NCT lady and HV werent supporting your needs. Saying 'breastfeeding is best' doesn't help a mum and telling you to express when you wanted info on weaning onto formula didn't help either. 'Some' people think that trying to 'force' the issue it going to help mums, it doesn't! The mum needs to be listened to and supported with her decision......whatever that decision is

[Mathanxiety] I agree, there are many fabulous professionals out there who really understand the difficulties and can support a mum effectively. You often find (but not always) that these are women who have breastfed themselves, so have true empathy for the mum's as they understand what they are going through. This is one of the reasons why mothers in the past would have found it 'easier'. The women around them would understand and would be able to support them effectively. Families and friends have a huge impact on how successful feeding is, partners in particular. If they're not 'on board' then mum's are often fighting a losing battle before they start. That person is with you 24/7, and if they are not supportive then it's a huge challenge. Even when they are supportive, and mums are determined, it can still be a struggle, there's always difficult times when you question what you are doing and whether you can keep going!

I was fed condensed milk ( in the 60's!) mum had brews abscess so was advised not to bf me.....I bf all 3 of mine tho

• breast abscess!

I think the number of women actually unable to breastfeed is very very small. I was lucky and was able to breastfeed relatively easily. If it had been very difficult ( bleeding nipples, agonising pain, slow weight gain) I would have chosen the safe and viable option of formula. But if no safe formula was available most women I think would breast feed through the agony to keep their baby alive. Thank god we live in time and a place with options!