[Steve Van Doorn]

said, " if a woman was having trouble producing milk, she simply would bring her baby to another woman in the town."

Wet nurse used to be very common. Even the most noble people had great respect for them. Put aside the proper nutrients in human breast milk. The social bonding between servants and nobility was rooted from the noble baby. I believe this was a critical aspect of civilization that was lost.

[Publius]

There’s another aspect we’ve lost.

If you watch an old western, it’s the town doc who jumped in his buckboard to deliver the baby. In real life it was the local midwife who delivered the child. The town doc was called in only if there were complications.

In the early 20th Century the medical profession decided to put midwives out of business. They did so by lobbying for changes to state laws but also through the media. Representatives of medical lobbying groups went so far as to sit down with Hollywood studio bosses to ask for changes to scripts to hand delivery of a baby to the doctor, not the midwife.

Recently the profession of midwife has returned in some states but only if trained by medical professionals like nurses.

[little jeremiah]

I agree. Babies fare much better on natural mother’s milk, plus being held close by a mother/motherly woman is infinitely better for infants than lying by itself with a bottle propped up.