Women in the dairy farming community did not breastfeed, according to an analysis of bones from 500 people who died in Middenbeemster between 1830 and 1867.
Murugesu was written by Jason Arunn.
Abraham Bloemaert wrote From The Five Senses.
F. Bloemaert/A. Bloemaert/N. Visscherimage.
Women from a 19th-century farming community in the Netherlands probably didn't breastfeed their babies because they were too busy working. This is the first time that widespread artificial feeding has been found in a farming community.
The bones of about 500 people who died in the village of Middenbeemster in the north of the Netherlands were analysed by the Western University team.
Waters-Rist and her team were offered the chance to analyse the remains after they were dug up. It's rare to have such a large sample size and to have all this amazing archival information.
The researchers wanted to find out more about the diet of the women and children in this village, which mainly consisted of dairy farmers at this time.
The team was able to determine if the children were breastfeeding by analyzing their bones. Children who are breastfed have different ratios of carbon and nitrogen.
Some of the children who died before the age of 1 showed no evidence of being breastfed.
Thirty-five children between the ages of 1 and 6 showed no signs of breastfeeding. The team believes that this was due to the fact that most of the women in this community worked on the farms.
She says that it was a sign of how busy the women were.
Waters-Rist says this has never been seen among farmers before.
The findings of this study are intriguing for an agricultural community where mothers and infants would not have spent long periods apart. She believes that the results may be skewed by only looking at children who died before the age of six.
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