Wet Nursing

History of Wet Nursing

Mentioned in texts dating from the 3rd millennium B.C.E., wet nursing has been a common practice throughout history. The prevalence of wet nursing can be attested to by the fact that the practice made its appearance in legal documents and royal statutes. The Babylonian Code of Laws, for example, included a clause regarding the behavior of wet nurses, while a 1350 French royal edict outlined minimum wages due to nurses.

The practice of hiring a wet nurse has been particularly prominent among the upper classes. Wet nurses became part of the domestic service of a wealthy family. Living in the family home, their activities were closely scrutinized by the biological [Page 1272]mother, who sought to ensure the health of her child. But while wet nursing was most common among the upper classes, it is evident that women of all social classes employed wet nurses. In 18th-century France, for example, some 90 percent of infants were suckled by wet nurses. In most of these cases, nurses did not reside in the family home; rather, infants were sent away, sometimes up to 125 miles from home, for extended periods of time. Similarly, in 19th- and early-20th-century Chicago, wet nurses hired by upper-class families were required to send their own infants out to nurse, sometimes with disastrous effects.

Wet nursing arrangements were organized in a variety of ways. In 18th-century France and early-20th-century United States, for example, bureaucratic bodies supervised official interactions between mothers and potential wet nurses. Organizations such as Chicago's Wet Nurse Bureau of Information kept registries and certified the health of prospective wet nurses. In 19th-century Britain, upper-class women sought the advice of their family physicians, responded to newspaper advertisements placed by prospective wet nurses, or applied to lying-in institutions. In other instances, wet nurses were hospital employees, hired to produce milk for premature, ill, or abandoned infants. In one unique case, the experimental Vaugirard Hospital in Paris hired syphilitic wet nurses to administer arsenic to syphilitic infants through their breast milk.

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