In the years surrounding 1750 criticism was made against wet nursing. Some sources believed children under the control of wet nurses were neglected by them.

'When [the baby] cries, he is hung from a nail like a bundle of old clothes while the nurse attends to her business the child remains thus crucified. All who have been found in this situation had a purple face because the blood could not circulate.'

(Dr Cadogan)

The above claims may have been true; nevertheless this will have only probably been in extreme cases only.

In 1741, Captain Thomas Coram set-up the first foundling hospital as he couldn’t stand the site of dead children in the streets of London. It was a common belief that wet nurses murder babies as they can’t financially support a child nor feed it. These beliefs were backed up by statistics from Sweden that show that a form of child death was suffocated by mother or wet-nurse.
("Tabellverket").

The importance of wet-nurses or breastfeeding at the time shouldn’t be disregarded. In a letter to John Milner Esq. it was said:

'March 25th, 1741 - admitted 30 children; to wett nurses, 2: dyed, -: to dry nurses, 28; dyed, 15.
April 17th, 1741 - admitted 30 children; to wett nurses, 7; dyed, 1: to dry nurses, 22; dyed, 11.
May 8th, 1741 - admitted 30 children; to wett nurses, 17; dyed, 4: to dry nurses, 13; dyed 8.
Total children admitted, 90. Total to wett nurses, 26; dyed 5. Total to dry nurses, 63; dyed, 34. Taken out, 1'


(Hans Sloane)

These figures showed the mortality of children sent to a dry nurse (a nurse who feed the child without a breast) was almost three times as much as that sent to a wet nurse.

The thing which needed to be debated was that was it worth the risk of misconduct from a wet nurse or was it worth the risk of feeding a child from a dry nurse? Another option was for even a wealthy mother to feed their child themselves. However, gradually, it may have helped reduce the child mortality rate.

By Joe Anderson
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Bibliography

Tabellverket. (1749). Retrieved 2005 from http://www.ddb.umu.se/tabellverk/Material/Formularinnehall/mortcodeath.htm.
Hans Sloane S. (1748). On the nursing of infants. Retrieved 2005 from http://fn.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/85/1/F73#B3.

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