Wet-nursing

The enduring legacy of slavery on Black women’s bodies in the Americas has notably resulted in some of the lowest rates of breastfeeding and even worse, a crisis of infant and maternal death. Persistent racial disparities today (particularly in healthcare) are the ripple effects of untold physical, psychological and sexual violence suffered by Black women for centuries as they performed domestic and agricultural roles as chattel slaves.

In the United States, a North Carolina midwife recently uncovered one reason why breastfeeding has been and still is shunned by Black American mothers: a desire to disassociate themselves from the past, from slavery and the wet-nursing or the “Mammy” stereotype. This widely held but “fixed” and oversimplified image of a Black female slave feeding white babies their precious breastmilk is a revolting representation that was propagated by American visual art mediums.

Feeders of the World. Wet Nurses and Social Reproduction The article is an attempt to outline the history of wet-nursing on the example of France from the late 18 th century until the beginning of the 20 th century. The main aim of the article is to highlight the social and economic changes undergone by the profession of wet-nursing. This study explores the process in which increasing industrialisation and urbanisation leads to wet nurses becoming gradually subjected to what Karl Marx described as formal subsumption of labour under capital. Wet-nursing was one of the most important functions contributing to societies' survival and reproduction, which is why at the turn of the 19 th century it was commodified and transformed into one of the most alienated types of labour. These processes were accompanied by a series of changes in the social and cultural perception of wet nurses, notably by the so-called rabble discourse typical for the 19 th-century means of racialising working class people.

Resumen
Se presenta una propuesta de investigación en curso, un proyecto donde se aúnan, y se alían, los estudios de lactancia y los de patrimonio inmaterial (estudios críticos de patrimonio). El objetivo es, pues, doble: (1) rescatar el patrimonio cultural inmaterial (asociado a la Plaza de las Pasiegas de Granada) que supuso la práctica de la lactancia por nodrizas, atravesando la historia socio-ciudadana que implicaba la cultura de lactancia (y crianza, por ende) asalariada, para aterrizar (2) en la cultura de lactancia contemporánea denominada lactivismo, que está creando a su vez lo que consideramos nuevas formas de patrimonio vivo.

Palabras clave: nodrizas, lactivistas, Plaza de las Pasiegas (Granada, España), lactancia materna, patrimonio vivo.

Abstract
A proposal of research-in-progress, combining lactation studies and critical heritage studies, is presented here. The aim of this work is to rescue oral memories about the breastfeeding practice in the Plaza de las Pasiegas of Granada (Spain): from past waged nursing to current lactivism. Through that social and civic story involving a culture of breastfeeding (1), we land on the culture of contemporary nursing (2), in turn creating what we consider new ways of living heritage.

Key words: nursing, lactivism, Pasiegas Square (Granada, España), breastfeeding, living heritage.

En todas las sociedades la gente se siente más cercana a unas personas que a otras. Estas relaciones humanas conllevan diferentes derechos y obligaciones, roles y estatus. Si nos centramos en la literatura antropológica vemos que la regulación por consanguinidad o afinidad y la percepción de sentirse más unido o no a otra persona tiene que ver en muchos de los casos con relaciones denominadas de parentesco, sin decir con ello que otros vínculos como la amistad no puedan ser importantes para organizarse socialmente. ¿Qué sucede, sin embargo, cuando la sustancia compartida no es la sangre sino la leche humana?, ¿lo ha sabido la antropología reconocer y analizar? Esta etnografía tiene como ámbito espacial y temporal la España de los siglos XIX-XX y como objeto de estudio la realidad cultural de la mujer campesina pasiega en el ejercicio de la lactancia asalariada como nodriza doméstica entre las clases más acomodadas del país: aristocracia, alta burguesía y Casa Real. Un oficio prácticamente invisible en la historia del trabajo femenino que pone en evidencia, por un lado, la importancia de la lactancia en las representaciones del cuerpo, gestación y alimentación, su papel en la crianza infantil y en la constitución de la persona, infancia y maternidad; y por otro, la simbología de la leche como fluido corporal que, en caso de ser compartida, es capaz de generar relaciones denominadas, desde el punto de vista local, de parentesco de leche. Un parentesco entre dos grupos bien diferenciados en esta sociedad jerarquizada y patriarcal. ÍNDICE Prólogo, por M.ª Jesús Buxó Rey. Introducción. PARTE I: EL PARENTESCO DE LECHE: Cap 1. La simbología de la leche en la construcción de identidad y un cierto tipo de parentesco. ¿Parentesco de leche? PARTE II: ESTUDIO ETNOHISTÓRICO DE LA NODRIZA PASIEGA: Cap 2. El área pasiega: contexto histórico y etnográfico. Cap 3. La oferta, el trayecto y la demanda. Cap 4. La nodriza doméstica pasiega: condiciones de trabajo en la ciudad. Cap 5. El retorno a los Montes de Pas: ventajas y desventajas de una emigración. Conclusiones: Nodrizas y madres de alquiler: un debate histórico y actual: ¿Se puede hablar de una maternidad «fragmentada»?
https://www.worldcat.org/title/lactancia-y-parentesco-una-mirada-antropologica/oclc/804884826

Human milk, beyond being perceived as food, is a biological bodily fluid capable of generating imaginaries which can be used for the construction of identities and relationships among individuals in the case of flowing and being shared. Taking this premise into consideration and having as reference a group of Moroccan Muslim women living in Barcelona, in this article we will analyze how in transnational contexts, and from this kind of milk kinship established by Islam, there is a widespread refusal to accept milk from a milk bank in the event that the biological mother could not breastfeed her own baby. This food restriction for the newborn, which can be incomprehensible among the Catalan health system, is mainly due to the fear that many women have regarding the fact that through ingesting “anonymous” milk, their son or daughter could start a new (milk kinship) relationship with an unknown person. KEYWORDS: applied anthropology, transnational families, reproduction, risk, maternities-

La leche humana, aparte de alimento, es un fluido biológico corporal que, en caso de circular y ser compartido, es capaz de generar imaginarios que se usarán para la construcción de identidades y relaciones entre individuos. Partiendo de esta premisa y teniendo como referente un grupo de mujeres musulmanas marroquíes residentes en Barcelona, en este artículo se analizará cómo en contextos transnacionales y a partir de un cierto tipo de parentesco de leche que establece el Islam, hay un generalizado rechazo a aceptar leche de un banco de leche en el supuesto de que la madre biológica no pueda lactar a su propio hijo-a. Una restricción alimentaria que puede resultar incomprensible en el entorno sanitario catalán y que responde al temor que tienen estas mujeres de que al ingerir una leche "anónima", sus hijos-as puedan iniciar una nueva relación de parentesco de leche con un desconocido.

Review of the book

江昱緯.  救嬰 與濟貧: 乳婦與明清時代的育嬰堂 (Foundling Home Wet Nurses in Late Imperial China).

This book is about the network of foundling homes established by the government and philanthropists in late imperial China to rescue and feed vulnerable babies.

In 2016, a milk bank opened its doors in Hastings-On-Hudson, New York, to collect, process, and distribute human milk for premature or sick babies whose parents cannot breastfeed for a host of reasons. That same year, to facilitate the gathering of the milk from various depots and make urgent deliveries to NICUs and families, the bank forged a much buzzed about partnership with the Sirens Women’s Motorcycle Club of New York City. Based on interviews with the primary women involved as well as archival research, this essay highlights the connections between today’s milk bank and the “breast milk dair[ies]” which saw the light in Manhattan and Brooklyn one century ago. Is the newly minted bank part of the same socio-cultural lineage as its pre-war antecedents? Are the people at the forefront of milk banking (who most often identify as women), either as bank workers, transporters, or donors, treated and seen in the same way now and then? Based on feminist and visual studies perspective, we argue that as in the past, present-day milk banking relies on a form of embodied female labor that is both emancipatory and exploitative, and in that respect, can be connected to a long history of providing human milk for profit in the form of wet nursing.

It is often assumed that where infants cannot be breastfed by their own mothers, as is often the case in emergency situations, the second-best option is to use infant formula. However, wet nursing is usually a better option than infant formula. The wet nursing could be spontaneous or it could be organized in advance. In many cases, the needs of infants who cannot be breastfed by their own mothers could be met with the help of lactating women in their area. In some cases, banked human milk might meet the need, but in emergency situations it is not likely to be readily available when and where it is needed. Plans could be made by women’s groups to offer lactation services in their areas in emergency situations.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to determine the knowledge, attitude, and practices of mothers about wet-nursing and human milk banking in Kayseri, Turkey. Materials and Methods: This descriptive study was conducted in the family healthcare centers of four community health care centers in Kayseri Province. The questionnaire form was fulfilled with face-to-face interviews of 614 participants. Results: Of the mothers, 88.9% had heard about wet-nursing, 10.9% had a wet-nurse of her own, 5.2% had a wet-nurse of her child, and 5.0% had been a wet-nurse of another child. Wet-nurses were chosen mostly from relatives. Of the mothers, 93.6% stated that they had not heard about milk banking, whereas 97.2% did not know its purpose and services. More than half of the mothers (61.6%) thought human milk banking as a right application, whereas 75.4% of the mothers who thought that it was not right were against it because they believed marriage between foster milk siblings was religiously forbidden. Most of the mothers (79.8%) stated that they could milk for another child, and 56.2% identified that they could donate breast milk to the human milk bank. Conclusion: More than half of the mothers thought that milk banking was a correct application. Mothers who were opposed to milk banking showed religious justifications as reasons. Placing the subjects "milk banks" and "human milk donorship" during education on breast milk in hospitals is important in terms of increasing the awareness of mothers.

This research starts from the premise that from Greco-Roman Antiquity up to the nineteenth century, when new discoveries in the field of biogenetics appear, one of the reproductive models that we find in Southern Europe is intra-extrauterine. This model includes four stages: conception, pregnancy, delivery and lactation. Human milk is perceived as menstrual blood that disappears for nine months in order to feed the embryo in the uterus, and then reappears in a purified form as milk. This process of mutation means that in the collective imaginary the frontier between the bodily fluids (milk-blood) is not defined, and blood, in its broader sense, is seen as the guiding principle. That is why, when two so far biologically unrelated infants are breastfed by the same wet-nurse, they can be recognized as milk siblings and the lactating woman as their milk mother. Based on this premise, the goal of this research is to make a theoretical proposal to the Anthropology of kinship by incorporating human milk in its double symbolic dimension: as food, by our conditions as mammals, and as a potential symbol of reproduction and, therefore, kinship as a result of circulating and being shared. In order to support this proposal, we will proceed with the analysis of some historical sources, comparative ethnology, and the result of an ethnohistorical case study focused on the role that domestic wet-nurses have had in the construction of milk kinship in Spain.

En esta investigación partimos de la premisa que desde la Antigüedad grecorromana hasta el siglo XIX, que es cuando aparecen los primeros descubrimientos en el campo de la biogenética, uno de los modelos de procreación que encontramos en el sur de Europa es intra-extrauterino. Un modelo que incluye cuatro etapas: concepción, embarazo, parto y lactancia. La leche humana es percibida como sangre menstrual que desaparece durante nueve meses para alimentar al embrión en el útero, ser desviada y purificada al transformarse en leche. En el imaginario colectivo, la frontera de los fluidos (sangre-leche), por su carácter de mutación, no está muy definida, siendo la sangre, en su sentido más amplio, el principio rector[1]. Por eso se entiende que dos personas, hasta el momento no emparentadas biológicamente, al lactar de la misma mujer-nodriza, se puedan llegar a reconocer como hermanos-as de leche y, a la mujer lactante, madre de leche. A partir de esta premisa, el objetivo de esta investigación es hacer una propuesta teórica a la antropología del parentesco, al incorporar la leche humana en su doble dimensión simbólica: como alimento, por nuestra condición de mamíferos, y símbolo de la reproducción y, por tanto, del parentesco en el caso de circular y ser compartida. Para amparar esta propuesta se procederá al análisis de fuentes históricas, la etnología comparada, y al resultado de un estudio etnohistórico centrado en el papel que tuvieron las nodrizas domésticas en la construcción del parentesco de leche en España.