Breastfeeding
Videos
Breastfeeding, also known as nursing, is the process whereby breast milk is fed to an infant or toddler. Infants may suckle directly from the breast, or milk may be extracted with a pump and then fed
An infant being breastfed
Dutch woman breastfeeding
Maternal hormone levels during pregnancy and after delivery of the placenta. Estradiol, estriol, progesterone, testosterone, and sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) all increase throughout pregnancy and experience an abrupt drop-off after delivery of the placenta.
Checking a newborn baby's breath sounds with a stethoscope
Wet nurse
Videos
A wet nurse is a woman who breastfeeds and cares for another's child. Wet nurses are employed if the mother dies, if she is unable to nurse the child herself sufficiently, or if she chooses not to do
Breastfeeding
…It is not only a mother who may breastfeed a child. Parents may hire another person to do so (a wet nurse), or may share childcare with another mother (cross-nursing). Both of these were common throughout history. It remains popular in some developing…
Louis XIV as an infant, with his wet nurse Longuet de la Giraudière
A 16th-century carving in a Belgian church, showing a woman expressing her milk into a bowl
A Russian wet nurse, c. 1913
A funerary stele (akin to a gravestone) erected by Roman citizen Lucius Nutrius Gallus in the 2nd half of the 1st century AD for himself, his wet nurse, and other members of his family and household