The Wet-Nurse

Some British working mothers are hiring wet-nurses for their children. Some people find this to be outrageous. But having a wet-nurse suckle a baby if the mother could not (or would not) is an old custom. St. Therese of Lisieux's mother was unable to nurse her and so the future saint spent the first year of her life with a peasant woman in the country. Marie-Antoinette also spent a large part of her infancy at the home of her wet-nurse Frau Weber, so that she regarded the Webers as a second family and referred to Joseph Weber as her "foster brother." In the past having a good wet-nurse often determined whether a child would live or die, if the mother was unable to feed her own baby. Share