Breastfeeding's renaissance over the last several years is starting to play out in an interesting way. As parents are bombarded by information that indicates that breastmilk has magical powers, some of them are taking it to a more extreme level and cross-nursing with the babies of family and friends. As the popularity and availability of milk banks rise, so too has the availability of one of the worlds' oldest professions: the wet nurse.
Time Magazine covers this issue in a pretty non-judgmental way, though I suspect their photo of a woman breastfeeding her toddler (shown at right) will probably generate a shitstorm all by itself, never mind how the idea of women breastfeeding other people's babies is going to play out in middle America.
I'd have done it. It never came up in my circle of friends, but if it had, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash. I can think of five or six people whose babies I'd have cheerfully nursed, and who I'd have allowed to feed my babies without any compunction. And now those five or six women are out there reading this and either thinking "Ew!" or "Aw!", and I couldn't begin to tell you who's thinking which. But I'm not particularly brainwashed by the idea that breastmilk is the end-all, be-all of nutrition. I just really liked breastfeeding, and I particularly enjoyed the feeling of connection it brought my children and I. Cross-nursing a friend's child wouldn't have brought me any closer to their family, but it would have been a totally appropriate symbol of a closeness that already existed. And seriously, I was good enough at it that if I'd realized there was a possibility to do it for a living, only the restrictions on my cocktail intake would have stopped me.
If you missed it, check out Jennifer Baumgardner's sweet essay about cross-nursing published recently in Babble.
