Wet Nurse - Practice Across Cultures

Practice Across Cultures

The practice of using wet nurses is ancient and common to many cultures. It has been linked to social class, where monarchies, the aristocracy, nobility or upper classes had their children wet-nursed in the hope of becoming pregnant again quickly. Lactation inhibits ovulation in some women, thus the practice has a rational basis. Poor women, especially those who suffered the stigma of giving birth to an illegitimate child, sometimes had to give their baby up, temporarily or permanently, to a wet-nurse.

Read more about this topic:  Wet Nurse

Famous quotes containing the words practice and/or cultures:

    It is accordance with our determination to refrain from aggression and build up a sentiment and practice among nations more favorable to peace ... that we have incurred the consent of fourteen important nations to the negotiation of a treaty condemning recourse to war, renouncing it as an instrument of national policy.
    Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)

    Because of our social circumstances, male and female are really two cultures and their life experiences are utterly different.
    Kate Millet (b. 1934)