A VNER G Iladi , Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses. MedievalIslamic Views on Breastfeeding and Their Social Implications (Leiden

Breastfeeding, as Avner Giladi amply demonstrates, is far more than the simple matter of providing nutrition to an infant. Who breastfeeds, for how long, and with what kind of encouragement, respect, and reward can tell us much about social attitudes toward infancy and the mother–child bond, as well as the value placed on motherhood in general. The extent to which the father alternately provides general support for mother and child or controls and limits the breastfeeding relationship, for example, can shape the father–child and husband–wife relationship in the long term. And a breastfeeding mother, as the primary nurturer of a child, finds herself in a unique position in relation to her children, her husband, and society in general: it is a moment pregnant with possibilities for the enhancement of a woman's power. A close study of breastfeeding, then, draws our attention to a society's attitudes toward young children, the construction of the family in relation to the needs of these children, and the ways in which relations between a husband and wife are informed by the rights and responsibilities surrounding this act of pivotal importance to the survival of the species, particularly in the days before pasteurization and infant formula, when the absence of a mother or wet nurse spelled almost certain death for a baby

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