I stand corrected… This is what was happening back in biblical times.

In ancient Palestine, since 2.000BC, children were considered a blessing, and breastfeeding a religious obligation. Breastfeeding used to last long enough, almost up to two to three years and provided the infant with protection from various diseases, and above all from dysentery which was common and often fatal.

Dysentery is most often caused by shigella bacteria (shigellosis) or an amoeba. Dysentery is often spread through contaminated food or water.

I could see women doing this back in the day, because children would get their fluids through the breastmilk instead of drinking water. So this makes a lot of sense. However; we have relatively decent drinking water these days, so they need to breast-feed for an extended period of time would not be as prevalent, if that was the actual reasoning back in the day.

At this point in time in society, it’s a personal choice. Also, a lot of women cannot breast-feed because of their breasts will not lactate, and they cannot get the baby to latch on. Back in the day, they would have nurse maids for that. I’m not so sure nursemaids are a thing these days. But I don’t want to take the time to do the research on that. However, I do believe there is a group of people that pump their milk, in lieu of, a nurse maid; but then still you would be bottlefeeding.

I guess only a woman can decide really if they’re going to breast-feed or not.