LACTATIO, Lactation, among medical writers, denotes the giving suck. The mother's breast, if possible, should be allowed the child, at least during the first month; for thus the child is more peculiarly benefited by what it sucks, and the mother is preserved from more real inconveniences than the falsely delicate imagine they would suffer by compliance here-with: but if by reason of an infirm constitution, or other causes, the mother cannot suckle her child, let dry nursing under the mother's eye be pursued.
When women lose their appetite by giving suck, both the children and themselves are thereby injured; wet nurses are to be preferred, who, during the time they give the breast, have rather an increased appetite, and digest more quickly; the former are apt to waste away, and sometimes die consumptive. In short, those nurses with whom lactation may for a while agree, should wean the child as soon as their appetite lessens, their strength seems to fail, or a tendency to hysterical symptoms are manifest.
When the new-born child is to be brought up by the mother's breast, apply it thereto in ten or twelve hours after delivery; thus the milk is sooner and more easily supplied, and there is less hazard of a fever than when the child is not put to it before the milk begins to flow of itself.
If the mother does not suckle her child, her breasts should be kept warm with flannels, or with a hare-skin, that a constant perspiration may be supported; thus there rarely will arise much inconvenience from the milk.
The child, notwithstanding all our care in dry nursing, sometimes pines if a breast is not allowed. In this case a wet nurse should be provided, if possible one that hath not been long delivered of a child. She should be young, of a healthy habit, and an active disposition, a mild temper, and whose breasts are well filled with milk. If the milk is good, it is sweetish to the taste, and totally free from flatness; to the eye it appears thin, and of a bluish cast. That the woman hath her menses, if in other respects objections are not made, this need not be any; and as to the custom with many, of abstaining from venery while they continue to suckle a child, it is so far without reason to support it, that the truth is, a rigorous chastity is as hurtful, and often more pernicious, than an immoderate use of venery. Amongst the vulgar errors, is that of red-haired women being improper for wet nurses.
If the menses do not appear during the first months, but after six or eight months suckling they begin to descend, the child should be weaned.
Wet nurses should eat at least one hearty meal of animal-food every day; with this a proper quantity of vegetables should be mixed. Thin broth or milk are proper for their breakfasts and their suppers; and if the strength should seem to fail a little, a draught of good ale should now and then be allowed: but spirituous liquors must in general be forbidden; not but a spoonful of rum may be allowed in a quart of milk and water, (i.e., a pint of each), which is a proper common drink.
Though it is well observed by Dr Hunter, that the far greater number of those women who have cancers in the breast or womb are old maids, and those who refuse to give suck to their children; yet it is the unhappiness of some willing mothers not to be able: for instance, those with tender constitutions, and who are subject to nervous disorders; those who do not eat a sufficient quantity of solid food, nor enjoy the benefit of exercise and air: if children are kept at their breasts, they either die whilst young, or are weak and sickly after childhood is past, and so on through remaining life.