How common was it to employ a wet nurse during the Victorian time period?
I think it was quite common. My sense is that is when the middle class really came into its own. It was uncommon, from what I read, to not have a wet nurse if you were able to afford it. It was a status symbol. It was right then that wet nurses started going to live with the families rather than what had always been, which was to bring the baby to the wet nurse and to leave it there until it was weaned. So it begs the question as to what happened to the wet nurse’s baby. A lot of them died, if not simply by starving to death, then because they were so weakened, any fever that came along could take them. Some families would let the wet nurse bring her baby. I don’t know why, probably simply to save money if she’d come cheaper. Q. How common is wet nursing today? Has formula virtually replaced the need for a wet nurse? There were two recent examples. One was last year when formula was corrupted, I forget what it was now, and so nursing mothers began to be in high demand because that was
