Two U.K, sisters who breastfeed each other's children claim that this parenting method has helped bring their families closer.
Bunty Rowe, 26, and Kyle Aldridge, 30, are active members of Lactivist, a professional breastfeeding group and believe in wet-nursing. They have also created a Facebook page for mothers looking for wet-nurses.
During their appearance on "The Morning" TV show, the sisters explained how cross-feeding had helped them. "Breast feeding and wet nursing is something historically woman have always done. It's only in the past century that we've started to think of it in a different way because I think society objectifies women. So we don't look at breast feeding in the same way. It's just so normal," said Bunty, who has two daughters.
Bunty further said that it is emotionally comforting that both look after each other's children. Her elder sister Kyle, a mother of five, explained how they actually got into wet-nursing. "It happened naturally when my sister went out one day and was nervous (about leaving her daughter) and I said if she cries her shall I feed her?" Since then these sisters have been cross-feeding for four years.
Kyle said that she finds breastfeeding a bonding process. The interviewers asked them about the risks of infections through wet-nursing such as tuberculosis, hepatitis and herpes being transferred through such parenting technique. To this Bunty said, "Although that is quite a low risk it is a risk you need to consider if obviously you have a stranger feeding your child. In the same way you would consider anything to be a risk if you were leaving your child in the sole care of someone else."
According to sciencemuseum.org.uk wet-nursing is an ancient occupation method mentioned in various early medical texts. In Europe wet-nursing became popular from the 1000s. Town women usually preferred country women to breastfeed their babies. By the 1800s British doctors strongly disapproved of this practice on moral and scientific grounds.
Bunty and Kyle said that they will establish a charity that helps women looking for wet-nurses. They claim that such a charity would benefit those mothers who have to leave their children for some work or the babies who are reluctant to drink from bottles.
