Baby food in 12th c. England

[wiseheart]

I'm writing a Cadfael story, and one of my characters has just born a child some two weeks ago. She doesn't have enough milk to feed the baby, and neither is a suitable wet nurse to find. So, what would she give the baby? Cow milk? Some mashed vegetables

Comments

[wiseheart]

Thanks for the suggestions. Actually, the mother does have some milk, just not enough. So she only needs to help out with the amount, not substitute breast feeding completely.

[conuly]

That's still hard. Babies that age can't digest anything *but* breastmilk easily - that's why formula-fed babies have stinkier poo. (And formula is quite a modern achievement!)

How little milk does she have?

[wiseheart]

Enough to nurse the baby twice the day but not more. She used to have a wet nurse who did the rest for two weeks or so but suddenly died, so now they're having the problem.

[sushidog]

Bear in mind she won't have baby bottles; she'll probably feed the baby by dipping a corner of a piece of fabric in whatever she's using (milk or gruel) and then letting the baby suck it, which is going to be slow and not hugely effective; a baby who isn't being breast-fed at two weeks is fairly likely to die.

[wiseheart]

Yeah, I'm aware of the technical problems. Fortunately, it's not so that she can't feed the baby at all, she just doesn't have enough milk. Thanks for the suggestions.

[marycatelli]

Actually sometimes they just had the baby nurse right from the goat's teat, which would also help with contamination.

[corvideye]

This is a much earlier (several centuries BC) archaeological find of a baby buried with a small horn (cow's horn I think?) with a hole at the end, which appears to have been used as a sort of bottle. It's questionable how effective this was, since the particular infant died, but might be a possible alternative for dispensing milk? I could also imagine medieval people trying to use a bladder, those being used at the time for various liquid storage (though I'm sure the contaminant possibilities would again be troubling).

[dustthouart]

I would think that the focus of the time would have been on herbal formulations, dietary supplements, and straight-out superstitions to get the milk to come in. You might check on that. Fenugreek is justifiably famous for this but I don't know if it would have been available in England at that time. I'm sure there was something local that had the reputation for increasing milk supply, whether or not it worked. "Lactogenic" and "galactogogue" are the keywords.

[wiseheart]

Thank you. As Cadfael used to live in other countries, including the Holy Land, he'd know more about herbs than the average herbalist, I guess.

[tylik]

And fenugreek would strike me as a likely one for him to have been exposed to, though I can't swear as to its availability.

[conuly]

Oats are considered to increase milk supply now, and they would've been available (I think), but I don't know if people thought they increased milk supply then.

[threnody]

I love you for writing a Cadfael story. <3

Goat milk would probably be the answer, and the person who suggested honey is probably spot on. Or indeed, any kind of plant that would add sweetness to it, if honey wasn't readily available.

People tend to go spastic when mentioning babies on anything but breastmilk (supplementary or not), but my seven siblings and I were raised solely on raw goat milk and we're all healthy adults of above average intelligence without any debilitating allergies outside of ragweed season, shellfish, and walnuts; so I'm here to tell you it can happen. :)

[wiseheart]

Thanks. :) Cadfael is something amazing, isn't it? I'm very glad to have the advice of someone with first-hand experience. It's immensely helpful in this matter.

[wiseheart]

Thanks for the warning. Whether they knew it in the twelfth century, though, is debattable. :)

[madame_manga]

I'm not too clear on how anyone in that era could have decided that a mother didn't have 'enough' milk, especially at only two weeks. Babies usually drop a little weight in that period, then start gaining. The whole insufficient milk thing strikes me very much as a modern idea, not a medieval one. More specifically, it's an idea that was once strongly encouraged by certain people who preferred mothers to feed formula by bottle rather than to nurse from the breast

[akcipitrokulo]

I was going to say this but not as well - chances of "not enugh milk" are pretty miniscule. mothers make enough milk in really dire conditions, even if they are malnourished. In the highly unlikelyevent it did happen.... would anyonerecogne it a it would be so rare?