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Home › Expert Q&A › General Concerns › Misc Questions › My cousin and I nurse each other's children when we are babysitting them. Is this harming my child in any way?

Expert Q&A

 

By Ann Calandro
BSN, RNC, IBCLC Lactation Consultant

""I have a 6-year-old daughter whom I nursed until she was just over 3. When my daughter was a baby, (5 months) I cared for my cousin's son who was 2. I would nurse both children, and in turn, my cousin would nurse both. It worked fine for both of us as her son was a nurser until he was almost 5, and my daughter never took a bottle. Now I am being told that I must have caused my child permanent damage that I don't know about yet, (this of course from a strictly bottle feeding mother) because breast milk is specially formulated for your child and yours alone. What I am looking for is a link dealing with nursing another person's child. I can't seem to find any. Can anyone help me out??""

I don't believe you will probably find an answer to your concern in any book. But let's just think about it for a moment. Breast milk is a wonderful food. It does change from week to week and month to month, to suit the needs of the growing child. Formula on the other hand, is the same at all times, if it is mixed correctly. Your milk would certainly not harm another person's child, nor would her milk harm your child, as long as you both were healthy and free of diseases such as HIV.

Relatives have been nursing the children of others under their care since the beginning of time. This is called cross nursing. Mothers frequently tandem nurse their own two children at the same time. I nursed my newborn and my 2-year-old during the same time frame. Many mothers tandem nurse, and there has been no documentation of problems resulting. For hundreds of years, women were hired to breastfeed the babies of others (wet nursers). Milk banks are around for providing milk for babies who need it and whose mothers cannot provide it. Breast milk is not saved as milk for one-month-olds, two-month-olds, three-month-olds, etc., but is pooled as a wonderful, life saving fluid, to be available to any child that needs it.

In some cultures, your daughter and her cousin would be called ""milk brother"" and ""milk sister"" and would not be allowed to marry, since they are considered now to be brother and sister. Interesting cultural taboo! If you are interested in the culture of breastfeeding, you might enjoy reading ""Milk, Money and Madness"" by Naomi Baumslad, MD, MPH and Dia L. Michels.

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