Despite its obvious benefits, human women throughout history have mistakenly believed colostrum to be rotten milk, or what they called beestings. Some even avoided giving it to their babies. In the fifteenth century, Bartholomäus Metlinger wrote the first European textbook for pediatrics. Despite the German’s own lack of breasts, he didn’t hesitate to mansplain women’s milk and what to do with it: The first 14 days it is better that another woman suckle the child as the milk of the mother of the child is not as healthy, and during this time the mother should have her breast sucked by a young
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