Quote:
Originally Posted by mamajake  And the historical parallel to this happened. The babies of wet nurses suffered, either because they did not get enough milk or did not get the milk of their own mothers. The mortality rates among the babies of wet nurses was far higher than that among the babies the "nurses" were hired to feed.
|
I think in the days before infant formula, when some women had to become wet nurses because they had no other skill, wet nursing was seen as a "servant" type job. Nowadays, I think the tables have turned because people see the benefits of breastfeeding, and therefore, the value of a wet nurse (and the milk she can provide, which is better than any formula in any store).
I think a person who nowadays would choose to become a wet nurse would likely be more educated than a woman of yesteryear, and would, therefore, command a higher salary (even if she is wet "nursing" by using a pump and getting compensated for her time at the pump, and not necessarily nursing another person's child directly). I also think it's less likely that a person of today who would choose to become a wet nurse would not breastfeed her own baby. I think what is a lot more likely is that anything a woman would choose to sell/donate would be extra, after her own baby has eaten. I think the service of wet nursing in years past was probably done as an act of desperation, a way for a woman with little to no education to make some money for her family with a service that only a lactating woman could do, so it was more likely that she would make her own child go without for the sake of making more money to survive. I just don't see that happening today, not among the population of women who tend to lactate now.
It could change, of course. If breastmilk becomes a recognized commodity to the mainstream, it's possible that all kinds of women would choose to lactate just to make money off it. But it's also likely that those women would probably not have chosen to breastfeed their babies anyway. If anything, becoming a wet nurse -- or selling their milk -- will
increase the chances of their children getting breastfed, not decrease them, because these women (who would have otherwise chosen to formula-feed and stop lactation) would choose to continue lactating... To make money, sure, but if a woman is already making milk, she might as well feed it to her baby if she's already making milk and pumping... It's free to her, after all... And she gets to make money off any extra... That would be pretty empowering...
UberMama, that's a really nice thing you're planning on doing. Whoever ends up your recipient is a lucky person. (I noticed in your siggie you're a surrogate... That's ALSO a really nice thing you're doing. Words cannot even begin to express it. Wow. I'm in awe. 
)
)
:
And am I correct that there is still no evidence that the "human milk fortifier" is anything other than hindmilk which requires no sophisticated technology to extract?
