Paying Moms to Breastfeed in Medieval Europe
The idea of offering remuneration to women for breastfeeding—even their own children—wasn’t unusual in late medieval and early modern Europe.
How Wet-Nursing Stoked Class Tensions
“[N]o man can justly doubt, that a childs mind is answerable to his nurses milk and manners.”
When Breastfeeding Was a Civic Duty
Think people are judgmental of mothers now? In the 18th- and 19th-centuries, mothers who bottle-fed their babies were blamed for many of society's ills.
From Home Births to Maternity Wards and Back Again
Once hospital deliveries became mainstream, mothers have had to make a choice: a home birth or go to the hospital?
The Cultural Expectations of Breastfeeding
Society constructs women’s bodies as sexual, but mothers’ bodies as asexual—a quandary that presents a dilemma for women who nurse in public.