36. When the mother is not able to suckle her infant herself, what ought to be done?
It must first be ascertained, beyond all doubt, that a mother is not able to suckle her own child. Many delicate ladies do suckle their infants with advantage, not only to their offspring, but to themselves. “I will maintain,” says Steele, “that the mother grows stronger by it, and will have her health better than she would have otherwise. She will find it the greatest cure and preservative for the vapors [nervousness] and future miscarriages, much beyond any other remedy whatsoever. Her children will be like giants, whereas otherwise they are but living shadows, and like unripe fruit; and certainly if a woman is strong enough to bring forth a child, she is beyond all doubt strong enough to nurse it afterward.”
Many mothers are never so well as when they are nursing; besides, suckling prevents a lady from becoming pregnant so frequently as she otherwise would. This, if she be delicate, is an important consideration, and more especially if she be subject to miscarry. The effects of a miscarriage are far more weakening than those of suckling.
A hireling, let her be ever so well inclined, can never have the affection and unceasing assiduity of a mother, and, therefore, cannot perform the duties of suckling with equal advantage to the baby.
The number of children who die under five years of age is enormous—many of them from the want of the mother’s milk. There is a regular “parental baby-slaughter”—“a massacre of the innocents”—constantly going on in England, in consequence of infants being thus deprived of their proper nutriment and just dues! The mortality from this cause is frightful, chiefly occurring among rich people who are either too grand, or, from luxury, too delicate, to perform such duties: poor married women, as a rule, nurse their own children, and, in consequence, reap their reward.
If it be ascertained, past all doubt, that a mother cannot suckle her child, then, if the circumstances of the parents will allow—and they ought to strain a point to accomplish it—a healthy wet-nurse should be procured, as, of course, the food which nature has supplied is far, very far superior to any invented by art.
Never bring up a baby, then, if you can possibly avoid it, on artificial food. Remember, as I proved in a former conversation, there is in early infancy no real substitute for either a mother’s or a wet-nurse’s milk. It is impossible to imitate the admirable and subtle chemistry of nature. The law of nature is, that a baby, for the first few months of his existence, shall be brought up by the breast; and nature’s law cannot be broken with impunity.[[146]] It will be imperatively necessary, then—
“To give to nature what is nature’s due.”[[147]]
Again, in case of a severe illness occurring during the first nine months of a child’s life, what a comfort either the mother’s or the wet-nurse’s milk is to him! it often determines whether he shall live or die.
But if a wet-nurse cannot fill the place of a mother, then, asses’ milk will be found the best substitute, as it approaches nearer, in composition, than any other animal’s, to human milk; but it is both difficult and expensive to obtain. The next best substitute is goats’ milk. Either the one or the other ought to be milked fresh and fresh, as it is wanted, and should be given by means of a feeding-bottle.