What is adoptive breastfeeding?
Adoptive breastfeeding is a term used to describe a mother who breastfeeds a baby that she did not carry herself. This term is gradually being replaced with the term induced lactation. You may be familiar with the term “wet nurse”, which refers to a woman who breastfed another woman’s baby. It was quite common among the European aristocracy prior to the 20th Century. The most famous “wet nurse” was actually Moses’. After he was plucked from the Nile his sister went to the Queen and suggested a woman to breastfeed him. The woman was Moses’ own mother. However in that case the “wet nurse” had actually carried the baby. It is not necessary to have been pregnant in order to induce lactation.
