The mode of nursing

To entrust their infants to a nurse was already a way for mothers of ancient times to escape the burden of breastfeeding. In the Middle Ages, however, breastfeeding was the rule. It was only from the 16th century that fashion began to flourish. It progressed to culminate in the 19th century and indirectly prolong its effects in the 20th century with infant formulas: many doctors recommended that young mothers give the bottle, considered healthier than the breast thanks to better hygiene conditions.

A few centuries ago, the concepts of hygiene and dietetics were rudimentary. Many infants died as nurses, up to 70%. The fact that population growth accelerates around 1700 suggests an even greater increase in births.

However, the issue needs to be studied more closely, as mothers who do not breastfeed are by nature more fruitful than nursing mothers. Stimulation of the breast and mammary glands releases some hormones that inhibit the ovulation. As a result, fertilization should be more frequent in the absence of breastfeeding.

The difference was, however, only for the period of approximately one year after each birth, followed by re-ovulation despite breastfeeding. The influence of this factor was therefore limited to the children who would have followed less than two years away. On the other hand, each mother giving her child to breastfeed led the nurse to prolong her lactation, so to prolong the inhibition of ovulation in her. Births earned on one side were lost on the other.

It should be examined to what extent the balance of interactions between these factors could have contributed to the fertility rate. If the increase in infant mortality due to nursing is predominant, we will have one more argument in favour of greater coital activity from the dawn of the Enlightenment.

It will then remain to decrypt the reasons for this activation, which initiates the demographic explosion whose planet is now at risk of being victimized. These reasons have most likely remained underlying other factors, such as medical, agricultural and industrial progress.

Once the phenomenon is decrypted, we will be better prepared to address the crucial problem of a more urgent reduction of the world’s population every day…