|
|
Article: Wet-Nursing
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Wet-Nursing
A wet nurse is a woman who breast-feeds a child that is not her biological child. Although specific wet-nursing practices differed among countries from the fifteenth through the early twentieth centuries, diverse customs produced largely identical results. Across space and time, maternal nursing produced the lowest infant death rates while wet-nursing prompted significantly higher infant mortality.
Wet-Nursing in France
Wet-nursing was a particularly entrenched cultural phenomenon in France, where the wealthy sent their infants to the countryside to be suckled for several years by peasant women. A high death rate was common among these babies, probably due to neglect. One ...