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For centuries the symbol of maternal love has been a baby nursing at a mother's breasts. Artists, enraptured by this theme, have produced magnificent paintings of this poignant scene.
But breastfeeding has had a rocky history. For hundreds of years, women who--for a number of reasons--have chosen to shun this perfect baby food have had a viable human substitute: they hired a wet nurse!
The story of wet nurses is an interesting one. During the height of the Roman Empire, the legions often brought home captive women who were nursing babies. The more breast milk these woman had the higher their price at the slave market. Wealthy Roman women apparently didn't object when their husbands impregnated them and a slave girl at the same time. It seems a wife was reassured that this sexual arrangement guaranteed her own child would have a good supply of breast milk when she was ready to resume her busy social life.
The Bible also holds many references to the use of wet nurses. The story of the mother of Moses being hired by the Pharaoh's daughter to nurse the foundling reveals that wet nurses were commonplace.
In fact, the practice of hiring wet nurses has thrived over the centuries. Families who employed such a person were encouraged to look for a number of important qualities a book on the history of obstetrics noted. "The nurse must be of a shapely stature, not too young and not too old. She must at all times be free from illness of eyes or body. Moreover her nature must be such that there is no defect in her body. Mark...