Wet Nursing: A History from Antiquity to the Present

Family, Sexuality, and Social Relations in Past Times

by Valerie A. Fildes

Wet nursing, or breast feeding another's child for money, is one of the oldest occupations open to women. This book is a history of these substitute mothers from earliest times to the present. Valerie Fildes examines wet nursing practices in ancient societies such as Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Graeco-Roman world; medieval and renaissance Europe; Europe and America since the 17th-century; and in the modern world, including the Third World. She explores the relationship between infants, their nurses and their natural mothers; its occupational diseases, in particular the transmission of syphyllis; its effect on birth rates; the changes brought about by discoveries in medicine and infant feeding, and the impact of industrialisation on nursing practices. Drawing on a wide range of sources - religious texts; parish records; archives of foundling hospitals; legislation and contracts; diaries, letters and autobiographies; and literature and newspapers - with extensive contemporary illustrations, Valerie Fildes not only contrasts the attitudes and practices found in different cultures, and explores the social, economic and demographic effects of wet nursing; she creates a vivid portrait of this fundamental human relationship. This work should be of interest to social historians and specialists in women's studies, as well as general readers.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1988

Reviews

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

corner stone of the discourse