Wet nurse

The yummy mummies of Instagram were far from the first to capture photographs of themselves breastfeeding, as these portraits of Victorian women in America demonstrate.

wet nurses

More than 150 years ago, enslaved black women were forced to feed and raise the children of their masters. Under strict guidelines black slaves were required, unwillingly, to wet-nurse these [white] children giving them priority over their own. The alternative, of course, was to be beaten or whipped. The black and white babies were not allowed to share the same breast as it was compared to whites not being able to drink from the same water faucet. The infant mortality rate during this time…

Portrait of Comtesse d’Herbouville and Her Children 1804-1806

Diane Victor " Wet nurse"

A drunken wet-nurse about to give the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) a drop of alcohol as a horrified Queen Victoria and Prince Albert burst in on the scene. Lithograph. | Wellcome Collection

The history of wet nurses

This naughty nurse is going viral.