Fluid Bodies: Wet Nurses and Breastmilk Anxieties in Eighteenth-Century Madrid

Abstract

From 1758 to 1781, 1,085 women took out advertisements in Madrid’s daily newspaper, the Diario (The Daily). Each of these women sought employment as a wet nurse but described their work in very different ways. Few studies about wet-nursing in early modern Europe have considered what these ads provide: the voices of the wet nurses themselves. Scholars have focused instead on the opinions and recommendations found in anti-wet-nursing literature, centering the perspectives of male, educated elites. What we know about breastmilk and, subsequently, early modern bodies shifts significantly when we consider the words and knowledge of the wet nurses of Madrid. Instead of anxieties about corrupt milk, social status, and religion found in prescriptive literature, I argue that through the inclusion of specifically chosen words in the advertisements in which they self-presented as effective breastmilk producers, nursing women resisted attacks on their profession and reassured parents about their breastmilk’s suitability.