Breastfeeding in Rabbinic Literature

In the ancient Mediterranean, many people, including Greek and Roman medical writers from Hippocrates to Galen, understood breastmilk to be menstrual blood transformed to milk that is then fed to the baby. Issues of breastmilk and blood arise in some pieces of early Christian literature; some rabbinic authors subscribed to this widely held medical theory while others did not. For example, in b. Niddah 9a, Rabbi Meir asserts that menstrual blood “spoils” and becomes breastmilk. B. Bekhorot 6b includes a similar debate, with some rabbis agreeing that menstrual blood becomes breastmilk and others disagreeing. Though the rabbis do not come to one unified conclusion, the understanding of breastmilk as transformed menstrual blood undergirds nearly every discussion of the substance and of the purity rules around breastmilk. 

Breastmilk is generally viewed positively by rabbinic authors, as it is life-sustaining. Rabbinic authors view breastmilk as life-sustaining not only in a practical sense, but also for Judaism. In b. Eruvin 54b, Torah is compared to a breast. Why? Because “whenever a baby searches it for milk to suckle, they find milk in it, so too, with matters of Torah.” In other words, whenever a person “meditates upon [the words of Torah], they find new meaning in them.” This connection between Torah and breastmilk drives home the importance of breastmilk and nursing within rabbinic thought.

M. Makhshirin 6:4 lists milk and blood as two of the seven substances that render food susceptible to impurity. M. Makhshirin 6:8 clarifies that a woman’s breastmilk conveys susceptibility to impurity in all circumstances (whether the flow was desired or not). In other words, breastmilk transmits impurity relatively easily. For this reason, rabbinic texts (such as b. Ketubot 60a) put specific regulations on the ways in which breastmilk can be consumed (namely, only young children can consume breastmilk from the breast; if it has already been expressed, via hand, anyone of any age can consume it). 

A woman who discovers menstrual blood ordinarily conveys impurity retroactively, to whatever she handled during the preceding twenty-four hours or since her last internal examination, whichever interval is shorter (m. Niddah 1:1). Four categories of women are exempted from these purity rules: a woman who has never menstruated, a pregnant woman, a nursing woman, and an elderly woman (m. Niddah 1:3–4). For these women, “her time is sufficient,” meaning that impurity takes effect from the moment of discovery and does not extend retroactively. The reason impurity does not extend retroactively for any of these women is because the rabbis presume that they will not be menstruating. The Babylonian discussion divides over why a nursing woman belongs in this group. According to R. Meir in b. Niddah 9a, the woman’s (menstrual) blood is being diverted to breastmilk, and she thus doesn’t menstruate. This logic allows him to argue that “if a woman continued to nurse her child for four or five years [instead of the usual 24-month mark], her time is sufficient and she does not retroactively transmit impurity for the entire four or five years.” R. Yehuda, R. Yosei, and R. Shimon hold instead that the postpartum body’s strength does not return for twenty-four months, and they fix the exemption at that term whether or not she is nursing (b. Niddah 9a). Only the first explanation involves milk. These debates revolve around when exactly menstrual impurity comes into play, given that breastfeeding is a natural menstrual suppressant.

While there is some debate within rabbinic text about exactly how long one should breastfeed one’s child, consensus is usually around 24 months. In b. Niddah 9a, for example, Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Yosei, and Rabbi Shimon are in agreement on both purity rules surrounding menstruation and 24-month breastfeeding. This length of time is not only for the child’s well-being; it is also about remarriage restrictions. Namely, should a woman be widowed or divorced while she is in this 24-month period of breastfeeding, she is not allowed to remarry until the period is up. Remarriage could potentially endanger a woman’s existing child, as the woman could become pregnant again and this, according to rabbinic logic, would decrease milk supply and quality.

The 24-month time limit for breastfeeding is also relevant to potential contraceptive methods a woman might use. B. Yevamot 12b, b. Ketubot 39a, and b. Niddah 45a detail that three categories of woman may use a contraceptive mokh (likely some sort of contraceptive sponge): a minor, a woman who is already pregnant, and a woman who is nursing. The woman who is nursing is allowed this contraception in order to ensure the quality of her breastmilk for her current child and to secure as best as possible the child’s survival (in a time and place with comparatively high infant mortality). The rabbis expect that a woman will likely have sex before her breastfeeding period is up and they have competing priorities to balance: regular sexual relations between a husband and wife, which for the rabbis is quite important, and the feeding of an infant, which is also imperative for survival. They litigate the danger of a woman getting pregnant while with a small child already in order to arrive at a solution that protects both imperatives.

Rabbinic authorities were concerned not just with the practicalities of breastmilk (proper consumption, proper storage, its necessity to feed infants), but also with who breastmilk was for.  For the rabbis, unlike for present-day thinkers, the woman’s primary obligation for breastfeeding was to her husband, not to her child, or any child. In this legal system, the husband had a (legal) obligation to feed his family. This system breaks down when it comes to feeding infants, who at the time could only be fed by someone who is lactating. The wife, in this figuration of responsibilities and obligations, is obligated to help her husband fulfil his obligation to feed the family, rather than being directly obligated to her children to feed them. 

This issue comes up within intramarital disputes about when a woman should breastfeed and if she can and should hire a wetnurse. (Generally, if the woman has the financial resources, wetnursing is allowed but not preferred.) It also arises in situations where a woman has been divorced. In this situation, she no longer has an obligation to her (now ex-) husband, as she would have if they had remained married. Still, there is a baby to feed. This situation presents difficulty and there is disagreement among the rabbis about the proper course of action. In y. Ketubot 5:6, in the event of a divorce, one cannot force a woman to breastfeed unless the baby already “knows” her (is able to recognize her either through sight or through smell and touch), in which case forcing breastfeeding (for a wage) is acceptable. 

As in other circumstances throughout the ancient Mediterranean, nursing was not merely a practical task, but also one imbricated with social and financial structures. Wetnursing was a somewhat common practice that tied the practical with the social and financial. A wetnurse was sometimes, though not always, enslaved. Regardless of enslavement status, this position was heavily regulated. Wetnurse contracts from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt outline meticulous rules wetnurses must follow, from minutiae about their diet to their sexual activity (or lack thereof). Wetnurses were an important part of some local economies. 

It is clear from rabbinic sources that wetnursing happened enough to merit discussing and regulating it. In general, for the rabbis, wetnursing was permitted based on the financial resources a woman had upon her entrance into a marriage, not whether her husband could independently afford to hire a wetnurse. For example, m. Ketubot 5:5 states that when a woman enters into a marriage with two enslaved “handmaidens,” she does not have to nurse, but instead can assign that task to a wetnurse (in this mishnah, likely one of the enslaved women the wife entered the marriage with) instead. Explicitly here, wetnursing is a task that is associated with enslavement. In rabbinic discussions about wetnursing, it becomes clear that the inequities surrounding nursing and child care are split not just down gendered lines, but also class/status lines. 

Nursing was believed to pass along to infants not just physical nutrition but also character qualities, so choosing the right wetnurse would have been exceedingly important. This concern is delineated clearly in b. Sotah 12b, where Pharoah’s daughter takes Moses to different wetnurses to attempt to convince him to nurse from them but he declines them all, saying “shall a mouth that in the future will speak with the Divine Presence actually nurse something impure?” Shemot Rabbah 1:25 notes that this contradicts “what we learned:…a gentile woman may nurse the child of a Jewish woman on her property.” And yet, Moses still rejected the gentile wetnurses. Why? According to the logic of this passage, the one who teaches the Torah should not nurse from a gentile woman. Not only are issues of ritual purity and impurity at stake, but also, in order to properly teach the Torah, Moses had to be breastfed by a woman who could help inculcate those qualities in him, and therefore, she had to be Jewish.

Discussions of breastfeeding are not confined to women who have just given birth. Rabbinic authorities also raise the possibility than men can lactate, and that they have done so in the past in situations in which their infants would have no other access to nourishment. This possibility is often glossed as a miracle that God performed in order to save an infant’s life. For example, b. Shabbat 53b relates a situation in which a man’s wife died while they had an infant and the man did not have enough money to hire a wetnurse—a potentially life-threatening situation for the infant. Without anywhere to turn, the section relates that a “miracle was performed on [the husband’s behalf]” and that he “developed two breasts like the breasts of a woman, and he nursed his son.” The rabbis disagree about whether this miracle was good or bad; Abaye argues is bad because it changed the “order of creation,” while others argue that it was good even though it changed the order of creation. While there are more detailed discussions about trans and gender-nonconforming identities in rabbinic texts, this story is an example of the non-static nature of gendered physical characteristics in rabbinic literature. Interestingly, m. Makhshirin 6:7 places the milk of a male among substances that don’t convey impurity, because even if a man were to lactate, he would not menstruate, which solves part of the impurity issue at play in these texts. 

There is some discussion of breastfeeding in aggadic literature, particularly the pericope about Sarah. In Bereshit Rabbah 53:9, in an expansion of the Genesis 21:7 passage where it is remarked that Sarah would nurse children in spite of her old age, the rabbis adeptly deal with the inconvenient plural “children,” instead of the singular “child.” In other words, they answer the question: why would the biblical text say Sarah would nurse children if she only had one biological child (Isaac)? In answer, the rabbis claim that Sarah didn’t only nurse her child. Rather, Abraham commands her to “expose her breasts” and feed all the children who need it. This is also an override, on Abraham’s part, of certain modesty restrictions that Sarah would otherwise fastidiously adhere to. In response, she “exposed her breasts and they were flowing with milk like two wellsprings.” Even the noblewomen came to her to have their children breastfed. According to the rabbis, those who came to Sarah with sincere motives became God-fearing; according to R. Aḥa, even the insincere gained worldly dominion, which they forfeited by refusing the Torah at Sinai.