A wet nurse or wet nurse was a woman who breastfed an infant who was not her own.
The most common reasons for their use were child abandonment or the mother's lack of milk.
The use of wet nurses dates back to ancient times and was common in Gipuzkoa. The development of quality artificial milks eliminated the role of wet nurse in Gipuzkoa in the 1950s.(1)
Until the beginning of the 20th century, the only food that could guarantee the survival of the newborn was breast milk.(2) Goat or donkey milk with flour was used as a substitute, so the survival rate in these cases was minimal due to the serious intolerances that occurred.
19th Century
Beginning in the 19th century, faced with the avalanche of abandonment, the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa became aware of the problem of abandoned children, creating various foster homes and care centers in the province.(3)
The approach taken in all of these centers was similar: they would take in the abandoned child and, within a few days, find a paid wet nurse who would be responsible for the child's feeding and education. The wait of a few days was intended to ensure that the child did not have infectious diseases such as the dreaded syphilis.(4)
This childcare situation normally lasted for seven years, after which the wet nurse could choose to adopt the child, which was common, or return the child to the care center, where the children led a very miserable life.(1)
What was originally an employment contract, which is why they were sometimes called mercenary wet nurses, ended up generating empathy with the child that led to their adoption.
The prototype of the wet nurse at the end of the 19th century was a married woman 25 and 40 years old, with children and in great financial need. In many cases, they would have suffered the death of a nursing child. They were usually rural women, where their work went more unnoticed than in towns or cities.(1)
These were some of the conditions that the Provincial Council of Guipúzcoa required for becoming a wet nurse in 1891: "Art. 26. The wet nurses to whom the Boards deliver the foundlings must be married, having previously ensured their robustness, sufficient milk supply, morality, and other circumstances required for the proper upbringing and education of the foundlings."(5)
In 1903, approximately 700 foundling boys and girls were in the care of their wet nurses, spread throughout the province.(6)
20th Century, The Fraisoro Nursery
With the creation of the Fraisoro Nursery (Zizurkil) in 1904, the living conditions of abandoned children and their mothers improved significantly. Gipuzkoa.(7)
The Casa Cuna housed up to 340 children from newborn to five years of age, and the same number of children were distributed throughout the province with their wet nurses.(8) The weakest children remained in the Casa Cuna, with around 30 wet nurses living in Fraisoro.(9)
Given the high mortality rate in Spanish foundling homes, a law was enacted in 1916, promoted by the Madrid pediatrician Juan Bravo Frias,(10) stipulating that mothers who abandoned their children in foundling homes must remain at the center as wet nurses for two months.
This measure greatly improved the survival of children, according to a study conducted by Gipuzkoa pediatrician José Antonio Alustiza at the foundling home in Madrid.(11)
Mothers giving birth in Fraisoro were almost entirely single and primiparous. After giving birth and the required two months had passed, half of them returned home, while the rest became domestic workers or became wet nurses.(12) This reflects the efforts made by the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council to hire wet nurses, on whom the survival of abandoned children depended.
Occasionally, the lack of wet nurses led to advertisements being published in the local Gipuzkoa press for women interested in this activity.(13)
The Fraisoro Nursery was the second center in Spain to use cow's milk formula, after the Barcelona Milk Drop.(14) It was used in Fraisoro as a continuation milk starting in the second or third month of life. Efforts were always made to ensure that children had a wet nurse for the first few months of life, resulting in a very high survival rate.
Conclusion
Until the 19th century, virtually all abandoned children did not reach one year of age.(15)
the 19th and mid-20th centuries, approximately 17,000 infants were abandoned in Gipuzkoa. Wet nurses enabled the survival of many of them.
The Gipuzkoa Provincial Council created an efficient for hiring and monitoring wet nurses and the children in their care, especially with the creation of the Fraisoro Nursery in 1904.(16)