Chapter 5 - Heywood

Chapter five discusses caring for infants. There are three main themes that emerge.

The first theme is wet nursing.

In this theme the mothers practice giving their child to another mother that has also recently had a child and this mother breasts feeds the child so that the biological mother can keep her figure. This started being practiced in the 14th century in the middle and upper class and by the 18th and 19th century it was practiced a lot. Now it is no longer practiced because people are opposed to it because people that practice it have a lower infant mortality rate.

The second theme is the scientific approach

This theme occurred in the 19th and 20th century and what happened was that medical professionals were dismissing female knowledge.

The third theme is Michel Foucault and he did some research in genealogy, which is tracing family history.

Coming from a dairy farm I know how important the first three feedings are, if a child does not get these feeds from their own mother or a mother that has a baby at almost the exact same time, the baby is going to miss out on the essential colostrum that the mother produces the first three days after childbirth. Therefore I am against the idea of having another mother take care of someone’s baby. The fact that the mothers do it just to keep their figure almost makes me a little angry. It is not just the mother’s life that is being affected there is now a baby that has to be taken care of. I know that when I have kids I will do what is best for them, even if I do not like it or it ruins my figure.