Question:
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- The case of a poor mother from the Chinese countryside hired to breastfeed an affluent city-dweller's baby has stoked controversy over the ethics of the ancient practice of wet nursing.
Professional wet nurses have appeared in major cities across China, the Beijing News reported on Wednesday, fueled by rising incomes and a demand for healthy milk.
China has been dogged by a number of health scares regarding bogus baby milk formula. In 2004, at least 13 babies died from malnutrition in the country's impoverished eastern province of Anhui after being fed fake baby milk.
But the right of a woman to sell her breast milk, an occupation in China, that like the West, disappeared decades ago, has sparked heated debate, the Beijing News said.
Yue Jiangmei, a 22-year-old mother from China's northern Hebei province, left her baby with a relative to work in Wenzhou, a city in the booming eastern province of Zhejiang, the Beijing News said.
My daughter was 7 months old and able to be nourished with baby food and milk powder, the paper quoted Yue as saying.
She responded to an advertisement offering five times her salary, or about 4,000 yuan ($500) a month, to work as a wet nurse for a Wenzhou family.
The company trained her for a week, which included knowledge of breast care, baby massage exercises, post-pregnancy exercises... the paper quoted Hu Wei, a manager at the company, as saying.
She was also taught Tang dynasty poems and lullabies, Hu said.
Yue's case has fired debate, the paper said, on whether wet-nursing can be regarded as ethical work.
Some people say ... children of rich families have breast milk while cash buys the rights of the mother's own child to enjoy her mother's milk.
Hu thought the market potential for wet nurses huge.
The affluent level of society has the purchasing power, while the high wages will attract many women, Hu said, adding that professionals were appearing in major cities across China.
Given the market has this demand, this shows that there is value and reason in it.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/06/2...reut/index.html
Answer:
while i'm not against the idea of having a wet nurse, I think that it can become dangerous because seeing as how in this situation most of the wet nurses are from poor families/backgrounds, they may be too eager to make money and abandon their own children who still need them
Answer:
hm . as long as someone ensures the welfare of the wetnurse's child , i don't think this is a problem
Answer:
This has been happening since ancient times... what's the fuss?
While it is true that the wet nurses' own children are denied their mother's breast milk, they might eventually die of hunger if their mothers don't find work. Yep... so if the wet nurses send money back home from their stint... their children can still get nourishment from milk powder... nothing wrong, many people grew up drinking milk powder.
