PMID: 11620426Oct 20, 2001Paper

Motherhood, milk, and money: infant mortality in pre-industrial Finland

Social History of Medicine : the Journal of the Society for the Social History of Medicine
B Moring

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the levels, trends and determinants of infant mortality in various regions of Finland between the late seventeenth and early twentieth centuries. Nursing habits were of critical importance as were diet and hygiene. It is suggested that there were differences in the frequency of breastfeeding with the landless being more and the farmers being less likely to breastfeed their children. In areas where cows milk was readily available as a substitute for breast milk other influences on infant mortality were the contamination of drinking water and the water in which feeding utensils were washed. At the end of the eighteenth century, in the south-west of Finland, the introduction of the potato created a suitable food for women and children and lowered the mortality rate of infants aged 3-6 months. By contrast, in the regions where the first solid food given to infants was chewed by the mothers, infant mortality remained high. In the part of Finland adjacent to St Petersburg infant mortality actually increased as local mothers were engaged as wet-nurses by the city's foundling hospital.

Citations

Jul 3, 2013·Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution·Duncan O S GillespieVirpi Lummaa
Aug 7, 2013·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Adam D HaywardVirpi Lummaa
Sep 19, 2014·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Samuli HelleJukka Jokela

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