In the old days, when stately ladies did not want or were not able to feed their own child, nurses appeared. They were burly women, full of health, with a large physique. The nurse took care of a noble baby, circled his cradle at night, breast-fed the baby.
Not relatives
Young people today are wondering: “Milk brother - who is it?” In ancient times, the Russian dictionary included concepts such as “milk brother” and “milk sister”. Among the huge number of family ties, there are those that have nothing in common with blood ties: the godmother, the godson, the milk mother, the milk son ... Who is this milk brother?
This is the name of the male child who was breastfed by a woman who is not his mother. If the nurse had their own children, they were the baby's milk relatives.
Profession "Nurse"
Dairy brothers and sisters were not blood relatives. They could have no relationship with a woman who gave babies water with her breast milk. If for any reason the mother of the child was not able to feed or did not have milk, then she turned to the services of a nurse. Some women have been feeding other people's children for a long time, as long as age permits. A woman could give birth to her baby before or cause lactation artificially. Nipple sucking by a baby caused a rush of breast milk, and even a nulliparous woman could become a nurse.
Milk brother - who is it?
All the noble families used the services of a nurse, since feeding their own child was unfashionable and obscene for an aristocratic person. If a woman-nurse at different times fed the descendants of different families without kinship, their children were considered dairy. The son of the nurse, in relation to the alien children she feeds, is also considered a milk brother.
In pre-revolutionary Russia, on this occasion, institutions of nurse-houses were created. Women with their own babies were hired in wealthy homes, fed someone else's child, and gave their baby to foster homes or relatives in the village. If the child grew up safely, then regardless of his poor origin, he was considered a baby brother for a baby from a noble family.
How to understand this? Milk brother in the modern world
Nowadays, there are situations when mothers have insufficient or no breast milk. Many go to the milk mixture, but some women, taking care of their own child, try to maintain lactation, stimulating the production of milk with drugs, hot drinks, special massage and grinding. When breast milk flows abundantly in one mother in the hospital, and one or two drops is slowly expressed in the other, the first may offer to feed someone else's child while she is nearby. In the first days of life, the baby needs it.
There are cases when two relatives or friends give birth at the same time. In one of them, breast milk is produced in large quantities, the baby eats up, so the remains have to be decanted. Another mother has a different picture: lactation is at a low level, and no methods help to improve the quality and quantity of milk.
The child does not overeat, whimpers, does not put on weight, and a compassionate relative or girlfriend decides to feed two babies. She visits the baby every day or takes it at home and feeds her breast milk. Some women feed other people's children for a long enough time until the child grows up to eat cereals and other food.
The child of a nursing woman is his sibling, regardless of whether there is a relationship between them or not. This is who is the milk brother.
In the old days, a woman who was feeding someone else's child was his milk mother, and her children were milk brothers and sisters. The child treated her with reverence even as an adult and was grateful all his life.
They say that through breast milk a woman transfers the infant's mood, feelings, and perception of the world to the baby. Eating breast milk, the baby experiences a feeling of security, peace and tenderness. A woman nursing a baby inevitably feels tender feelings for him and affectionately calls him "milk daughter" or "milk son", even when the child reaches adulthood.