Hello

I wanted to share with you the link to a slide deck and a recording of a webinat that the IFE Core Group and the GNC supported in April 2024.

In April we had the pleasure of hosting the Supporting Wet Nursing in Emergency Contexts webinar and were pleased to have so many of you participate.  For those of you who have not yet had the opportunity to access the recordings and slide deck of the webinar, you can find them all here: Supporting Wet Nursing in Emergency Contexts on the Global Nutrition Cluster Events page.

Hopefully you will find it useful. UNICEF will soon release a wet nursing guidance in emergencies, so please stay tune

Best 

Alex

Hi.

Happy to see your interest in wetnursing.

Each researcher will have their own definition, depending on the situation or practice that they are describing.  Researchers should make their definition explicit, or, as you note, it can be confusing.  As Alex mentioned, the UNICEF wetnursing guidance will soon provide definition/s.

Meantime, you might be interested in some recent publications:

1. Facilitators and Barriers of Wet Nursing from Antiquity to the Present: A Narrative Review with Implications for Emergencies (see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378998752_Facilitators_and_Barriers_of_Wet_Nursing_from_Antiquity_to_the_Present_A_Narrative_Review_with_Implications_for_Emergencies)

    

2. Facilitators And Barriers of Wet Nursing Across Different Cultures: A Qualitative Study (forthcoming)

Best.

bindi
 

Hi there, 
I think that the answer to your question is that just one breastfeed by a woman other than an infant's mother is wet nursing. 
I wondered if your question was related to Islamic milk kinship though. When it comes to Islamic milk kinship though it is generally understood that a certain number of breastfeeds and sometimes also a certain quantity of milk is required to create the milk kinship relationship. These number of times can vary (I have seen as little as 2 times said and as many as 15 times). 

Thank you for your question. Together with my colleagues Bindi, Karleen and Alex who have answered your question, I am leading on the development of Operational Guidance on Wet Nursing in Emergencies, soon to be released by UNICEF.  Within this guidance, we will define wet nursing as follows:
 

Wet nursing (verb): The practice of a woman breastfeeding another's child.  Also known as non-maternal breastfeeding, allomaternal breastfeeding and at-the-breast milk sharing.   

Wet nurse (noun): A woman who breastfeeds a child who is not her own.   Also known as a milk mother.

As you can see, frequency and duration are not mentioned in our definition and therefore, an infant who is breastfed by someone other than their own mother even just once can technically be considered “wet nursed”.

As the paper you mention describes wet nursing specifically amongst Muslim mothers, I agree with Karleen that your question probably relates to the definition of wet nursing within the context of Islamic milk kinship i.e. how/how often/how long for does an infant need to be breastfed by a woman who did not give birth to them for milk kinship* to be established and for that woman to be considered their milk mother. 

*Milk kinship being a permanent family bond that is believed to be established through wet nursing. This bond extends to the wet nurse, the infant(s) she breastfeeds, and their relatives (kin). 

How wet nursing and milk kinship are practiced varies and is influenced by cultural and contextual factors. Within Islam, the conditions required to establish milk kinship, such as the number of feedings and feeding mode, differ across Islamic schools of thought (madhhabs), and should therefore be clearly defined by researchers in any publications. 

Further reading

• Norsyamlina, Che Abdul Rahim. “Wet Nursing in the Muslim Community from a Health Perspective. Archives of Community and Family Medicine.” Archives of Community and Family Medicine ( 2021) https://doi.org/10.22259/2638-4787.0401004  
• Thorley, Virginia. "Milk siblingship, religious and secular: History, applications, and implications for practice." Women and Birth 27, no. 4 (2014): e16-e19.  

•  Ghaly, Mohammed. "Human milk-based industry in the Muslim world: Religioethical challenges." Breastfeeding Medicine 13, no. S1 (2018): S-28.  

   

I hope this helps further answer your question?

Isabelle