Alicia Silverstone, author-actress-activist-vegan, has proposed the Kind Mama Milk Share, a breast milk exchange for vegan motherson her website, The Kind Life. For women who aren’t able to breastfeed their babies or who can’t produce enough milk, this offers an opportunity for them to connect with mothers who are willing to donate their oversupply. The Today Show, covered this story, with a tentative tone, saying that it could help many new, needy moms but it comes with some risks.
Alicia Silverstone, never the one to shy away from controversy, puts out the word in her blog….
“I say we help support those mamas and babies who need a hand during one of the most important times in their lives. It’s why I’m starting the Kind Mama Milk Share, a way for moms to connect with other moms in their area. If you have milk to share–post it! If you are in need of milk–post it! Think of all the babies we can help raise together!”
Milk-sharing, as strange as it may sound to many people, is an ancient practice. Since manufactured infant formula was only developed in the early 1900′s, “milk sharing” was not uncommon in pre-Biblical times through to the 20th century, cutting across all cultures. Even though it may be difficult to imagine life before baby formula, in the thousands of years before formula was developed, a newborn could hardly survive without mother’s milk, let alone thrive.
There were myriad reasons a woman might use a “wet-nurse” or another woman to nurse her child: serious or chronic illness of the mother, the mother’s desire to become pregnant again quickly, impoverished women trying to hide the birth of their illegitimate child, socially higher-class women or royalty using slaves or servants as wet-nurses., and the list goes on.
According to Wikipedia, “following the widespread marketing and availability of artificial baby milk, or infant formula, wet nursing went into decline after World War II and fell out of style in the affluence of the mid-1950s. Wet nurses are no longer considered necessary in developed nations and, therefore, are no longer common… The act of nursing a baby other than one’s own often provokes cultural squeamishness…When a mother is unable to nurse her own infant, an acceptable mediated substitute is screened, pasteurized, expressed milk (or especially colostrum) donated to milk banks analogous to blood banks, a sort of bureaucratic wet-nurse."
Read more about this "new" old-fashioned concept offered by Alicia Silverstone and "milk banks" around the country.... http://veganamericanprincess.com/alicia-silverstone-breast-milk-sharing/#sthash.1zmYq0kO.dpuf
Ellen Francis
Vegan American Princess
www.veganamericanprincess.com
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