Redefinition of Everything

This is World Breastfeeding Week. Every year, from August 1^st to 7^th, more than 170 countries recognize this week as a way to promote and encourage breastfeeding. For almost all of human history, all children thrived on breast milk. In centuries past, elites often hired wet nurses, so the infants still got breast milk. Even the commoners would arrange for a wet nurse if the mother died or was unable to breastfeed for some other reason.

In the late 1800s, a German chemist invented a formula that could supplement or even replace breastfeeding. The ingredients consisted of cow’s milk, wheat flour, malt flour, and potassium bicarbonate. It was an almost instant success and its use quickly grew and expanded across the ocean to the United States. A variety of different formulas were developed. Some hospitals even sent mothers home with a recipe so they could make their own formula. By 1950 it was more common for women to use formula that they bought or made instead of breastfeeding their children, with only 49 percent of women still choosing to breastfeed.