Women in 19th-century Dutch village didn’t breastfeed, researchers find

A recent analysis of bones of people who died during the 19th century in a small rural village in the north of the Netherlands suggests that women in this farming community did not breastfeed.

Rectify historical data

In the context of work published in the journal PLOS One, Andrea Waters-Rist and his colleagues from the Western University to Canada analyzed the bones of about 500 people who died between 1830 and 1867 in Middenbeemsterrecently unearthed during the construction of an extension for the local church, encroaching on the adjacent cemetery.

Also having death certificates for half of the deceased, the team wanted to know more about the diet of the women and children of this former community, which was mainly made up of dairy farmers.

” One of the main reasons for this type of research is to rectify historical data concerning the lives of women and children. “, Explain Waters-Rist. ” Traditional archeology focused on the activities of men and generally viewed women as passive actors. »

The team was able to determine whether the children had been breastfed by analyzing the chemical isotopes present in their bones (those who received the breast had different carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios than their mothers). Of the 20 children who died before the age of one, 15 showed no signs of breastfeeding, while the other five did not appear to have been so for long. The analysis of the bones of the 35 children who died between the ages of 1 and 6 revealed that 29 of them had never received the breast.

Exhausting working days

According to the authors, this trend is closely linked to the exhausting days of these women, who worked mainly on the village farms where they spent long hours tending to the cattle.

“ This highlights the hard work of these women, who were very busy, but always had fresh cow’s milk available. “, highlighted Waters-Rist. ” This is the first time that such a phenomenon has been observed in an agricultural community at the time. Until now, this had only been documented in very large cities, where women worked in factories and could not take their babies with them.. »

” The findings of this study are intriguing for a farming community where mothers and infants would not have spent long periods apart. », comments Ellen Kendall of the’durham university to UK. ” As these results only concern children who died before the age of six, it could also mean that those who were not breastfed had a higher risk of early mortality.. »