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.

If genuine supply problems affect 2/3% of mums then that's an awful lot of women out there in reality. Of course babies died. I didn't make enough milk first time and barely enough second time, I took medication to aid the hormones and expressed when possible. I had PCOS so not a surprise perhaps. Expressing can produce less milk than direct feeding too, many expressing mums take supplements to increase supply. I'm grateful we had formula to get through the adjustment period, DC1 would've been very poorly without it as was already readmitted with worrying weight loss. Don't feel bad, how you fed your baby will be much less important in a few years and you won't be able to tell the difference. Anything you do now is great and going for as long as you want is important. But it can be very hard for some women and others don't seem to have the ability to understand this.

My husband was fed on watered down condensed milk ( he could eat a tin now if I let him)

I was breast fed and when my mum tried to get me onto a bottle ( she became very ill and had to go into hospital) I refused it. So I went from breast to a cup even though I was a tiny tiny scrap of a thing - the cup was bigger than my face!

Apparently the Romans would latch their baby onto a goat! And, of course, there were Romulus and Remus!

Speaking of Romans weren't Romulus and Remus nursed by a wolf (this may not be true)

Oh and my great grandma was a wet nurse ... Which is funny as my other great grandma was well off enough to employ one ( wasn't my other GG though)

Cross post

If I had lived in those days, I expect dd would have died (severely hypotonic so unable to suckle effectively) and I would have become a wetnurse.

In fact, I did donate milk to the milk bank at the same time as receiving breastfeeding support from the hospital. Rather bizarre situation- I could happily feed somebody else's child, just not my own...

We're so cultured finding.

Wet nurses - there is still much demand for them today in China by the way. In Medieval England sometimes a baby would be sent away until it was 4 to a wet nurse even , but as we all know most mothers can breastfeed so there is usually not an issue.

(In the 1920s my father had a cow ear marked for him near by which was certified tuberculosis free from which he got his milk. My mother's family being poorer of course fed their babies much better - breast milk).

Babies died. Go read a history book.

Concerned

I suggest you read up on social history to avoid making yourself look foolish again.

The term "formula" comes from the prescription recipe for each baby's milk food along the lines of

2 tbs condensed milk + 1tsp sugar + half pint cow's milk.

My mum still has one in the back of her 1960s Dr Spock. She can't remember which child it was for, but it featured a lot of condensed milk.

The Arabs also set children away with Bedouin tribes who nursed them and returned them a few years later. I think the idea behind it was to give the babies a healthier start by experiencing a travelling life.

babies died of starvation.
if they were lucky they had wet nurses and lived. if unlucky they were given home made concoctions of bread and milk or goats milk and ended up weak and ill and many dies.

but as we all know most mothers can breastfeed so there is usually not an issue.

Just lay on the guilt, why don't you...

Some mothers can breastfeed, Others find it very difficult or even impossible. It is an issue quite often, sometimes an insurmountable one, and not one which can be talked away. So just as well there is formula nowadays.

There was a programme called "the Mill" I think it was on BBC last year - in it the mum has to go back to work in the mills asap so she pays another mum to have her baby, I also remember they tried to feed the baby tea ? I think the baby in that died in the end too whilst in the care of the wet nurse. It was quite harrowing especially as it was based on true stories from the workers at a cotton mill in Lancashire I think in the 19th C.

Re: wet nurses I think it depends on where you were whether just rich people used them.

DM, born in 1950s rural Italy says that there were wet nurses used if you didn't have enough milk. I read that these were often used by women that had to go work in the fields all day so I would think they were fairly poor.

A friend in her 80s tells me that she was quite early and very small as a baby but eventually thrived on Jersey cream!

I saw an episode of "Underage and Pregnant" on YouTube (in my defence I was ill in bed and feeling rotten). The grandmother prepared the baby a big bottle of tea along with her other children's breakfasts.

My grandmother had her children in the early 1920s. The first one she breast fed happily for 9 months. The second one seemed to be feeding fine but became quieter, thinner and purplish blue over a couple of weeks. Eventually my grandfather called the doctor who shouted "Can't you see he's starving to death ? Get out and buy a bottle !" My grandfather did as he was told, warmed up some cow's milk and fed the baby as Grandma was crying too much. The baby's colour went back to normal as he fed, and he quickly started to put on weight. Grandma's milk simply wasn't there any more.

The rest of the family babies have been breastfed with few problems. It just isn't true that everyone can breast feed if they have to.

My Nan born in 1904 told me she struged with breast feeding. She developed a breast abcess at least once. She raised her babies on Carnation milk.

I know in the 1940's my grandmother had it delivered by the milkman. No idea what was in it though!

I think in tudor times there were more wet nurses available. If you died in childbirth and you cousin had lot of a baby then the coursin might be able to breastfeed your baby.

I think a lot of mothers and babies died for various reasons. There was less breastfeeding failure because natural selection weeded out those who really couldn't breastfeed (in caveman times). People had more knowledge as I saw family feeding babies. A big issue for British women is that simply don't know what to do with a newborn when it comes to breastfeeding.

There were recepies for formula in the past. The biggest challenge was sterilisation. In a lot of countries failure to breastfeed is still certain death.

lucysnowe that's a v interesting link.

My grandmother worked as a wet nurse.