Having a healthy baby nursing at the breast will do just that. Also, women who wish to breastfeed an adopted child may cross-nurse to stimulate their breast milk supply. As long as proper infection precautions are observed, this is an excellent option. The cross-nursing mom should be healthy and well-nourished. She should not have any infections, take any medications, and not smoke.
A History of Wet-Nursing
Before there were other ways to provide nutrition to babies (such as formula), breastfeeding was the only source of food for infants. If a mother was not able to breastfeed her child, the child would not survive. One way that women would get around this was by helping each other. Mothers who had enough breast milk would breastfeed their own children as well as other children who needed to be nursed. While women would often nurse the children of family and friends for no charge, many women were hired to breastfeed other children. Wet-nursing is still very much alive in many cultures throughout the world. However, in Western cultures, it has been fairly uncommon since the early 1900s. Before the early 1900s, there was not a safe alternative to breast milk. Babies were not able to digest and tolerate what was available at that time. But, in the early 1900s, safer infant feedings were developed and, over the next few decades, became increasingly popular.
Wet-Nursing and Infectious Disease
In the past, breastfeeding someone else’s baby simply required that the nursing woman was healthy, had no infections, and wasn’t taking any medications. But, with the advent of HIV, things have changed dramatically.
Potential Risks
As with any intimate decision like this, the following should be considered:
The composition of breast milk will be different if the babies are different ages or at different stages of development. The other woman’s baby may refuse to nurse (if older than four months). The wet-nursing mom may have problems with the let-down reflex. There is always the potential for infection (in the woman or baby). There may be an interruption of the breast milk supply for the mother’s own baby. Wet-nursing may get a negative response from the baby’s siblings and other’s in the household.
Alternatives
If you are unable to breastfeed, or you cannot make enough breast milk for your child, there are other alternative methods of feeding your baby.
If you can pump, you can provide your breast milk to your child in a bottle. You can give your baby infant formula or both breast milk and infant formula. You can talk to your doctor about getting a prescription for breast milk from a human breast milk bank.
