wetnurse

The article sites the wetnurse history (which has it's uncomfortable associations of classism as well).

Apollo's Daughter :: August 5th, 2008 apollosdtr 2008

The article sites the wetnurse history (which has it's uncomfortable associations of classism as well).

Apollo's Daughter :: Breast AND Bottle apollosdtr 2008

I've imagined myself a poor wetnurse, bereaved of her own baby so that a rich woman, Berthe Morisot, might paint.

Susan Vreeland biography 2008

The mistake refers back to the description (in Mustio, etc.) of the wetnurse shaping the child's pliant body while swaddling it. back

A Tender Age: Cultural Anxieties over the Child in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 2005

Other writers suggested that it was not the mother or midwife who posed the greatest threat to the child but a third figure, once again female, who cared for the newborn — the wetnurse.

A Tender Age: Cultural Anxieties over the Child in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 2005

The medical corpus emphasized the relation of mother to fetus and of wetnurse to nursling, relations that, though potentially dangerous, were essential and demanded parental duty and love.

A Tender Age: Cultural Anxieties over the Child in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 2005

In the lengthy chapter entitled "De regimine lactationis et remotionis a lacte," Avicenna suggested that a wetnurse should only be utilized for the few days after the birth as the mother rested; however, his detailed notes on the exact characteristics needed in the wetnurse suggest a longer period of employment than simply a few days (as the reference to the wetnurse's conceiving while nursing hints; see below).

A Tender Age: Cultural Anxieties over the Child in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 2005

However, despite the emphasis on the dangers of bad milk and the view of the woman's body (that is, of either the mother or the nurse) as harmful to the child, medical writers expressed a belief that, properly regulated, the mother or wetnurse could produce uncorrupted milk to preserve the child's health and promote its growth.

A Tender Age: Cultural Anxieties over the Child in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 2005

Note that mamma usually meant simply "breast," although here it implied the breast of someone who was not the mother, i.e. a wetnurse.

A Tender Age: Cultural Anxieties over the Child in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 2005

But, in Avicenna's view, a wetnurse was necessary because the mother was too weak from her labor to provide milk. 125 The possibility of corruption at the outset of lactation paralleled the belief that external forces could effect negative changes in its quality.

A Tender Age: Cultural Anxieties over the Child in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 2005