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Stories

  • Article

Womb milk and the puzzle of the placenta

A human baby needs milk to survive – and this holds true even before it’s born. Joanna Wolfarth explores “womb milk”, as well as ancient and modern ideas about the placenta.

  • Article

Sharing breastmilk with parents

Alev Scott donated her frozen breastmilk to a hospital milk bank, but she was curious about other routes. Here she explores commercial operations and informal private arrangements.

  • Article

Trading breastmilk with men

When Alev Scott advertised her milk for sale, she was inundated with messages from men keen to satisfy sexual fetishes. Here she finds out who they are, and why women sell to them.

  • Article

A freezer full of breastmilk

When new mum Alev Scott began pumping her milk between feeds, she soon found she was freezing more breastmilk than her baby would ever need. So Alev began to investigate ways to share her oversupply.

All stories (9)

Images

  • Opuntia humifusa Raf. Cactaceae Eastern prickly pear, Indian fig. Distribution: Eastern North America. Stearns (1801) reports 'OPUNTIA a species of cactus. The fruit is called the prickly pear. If eaten it turns the urine and milk in women's breast red'. This is likely to be Opuntia robusta. The ripe fruits are reported edible, raw, and the leaf pads also, either raw or cooked. The fine spines, glochids, cause severe skin irritation so should be wiped off or burnt off prior to cooking and eating. Moerman (1998) reports that O. hemifusa was widely used by Native American tribes for wounds, burns, snakebite, warts (fruit), and as a mordant for dyes used on leather. Widely used, with the spines removed, as a famine food, and dried for winter use. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Opuntia humifusa Raf. Cactaceae Eastern prickly pear, Indian fig. Distribution: Eastern North America. Stearns (1801) reports 'OPUNTIA a species of cactus. The fruit is called the prickly pear. If eaten it turns the urine and milk in women's breast red'. This is likely to be Opuntia robusta. The ripe fruits are reported edible, raw, and the leaf pads also, either raw or cooked. The fine spines, glochids, cause severe skin irritation so should be wiped off or burnt off prior to cooking and eating. Moerman (1998) reports that O. hemifusa was widely used by Native American tribes for wounds, burns, snakebite, warts (fruit), and as a mordant for dyes used on leather. Widely used, with the spines removed, as a famine food, and dried for winter use. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Two women from Zanzibar, one milking the other's right breast into a cup.
  • Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: he kneels before a vision of the Virgin and Christ Child. Line engraving by M. Brandi, 1788, after J. Camaron.
  • Saint Bernard of Clairvaux kneeling before the Virgin and Christ Child. Colour etching by A. Scacciati, 1766, after G.B. Poccetti.
  • List of ways HIV is transmitted; eighth of sixteen advertisement posters by the American Red Cross promoting education about AIDS. Colour lithograph, 1990.
  • Saint Bernard of Clairvaux: he kneels before a vision of the Virgin and Christ Child. Engraving.
  • A warning about the hazardous and the non-hazardous practices in relation to the transmission of AIDS issued by the Bundesministerium für Jugend, Familie, Frauen und Gesundheit [Federal Ministry for Youth, Family, Women and Health]. Colour lithograph.
  • A woman breastfeeding: child nutrition in Nigeria. Colour lithograph by Federal Health Education Unit of Lagos, ca. 2000.
  • A baby holding a rattle: promoting breastfeeding in Nigeria. Colour lithograph by Unicef, ca. 1997.
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