Terracotta feeding bottle and feeding infants

Terracotta feeding bottle and feeding infants
400[B C]-301[B C]. Recipient in the shape of a breast © Museo Arqueológico Nacional

Terracotta feeding bottle and feeding infants

A terracotta feeding bottle decorated with plant and animal motifs, a symbol of the first months of a newborn’s life. These first months were a vital, critical moment, as the newborn was exposed to diarrhoea, infections and frequently an inappropriate diet. The bottle fed the baby goat’s milk, water sweetened with honey and hot infusions but was only used to complement breastfeeding or when a mother died during delivery (though in theses cases another woman usually did the job). In Greece, breastfeeding was common to all social classes (Andromeda, Hector’s wife, breastfed Astyanax, says Homer), because it was believed that the father’s blood turned into sperm, and that by boiling (it was considered to be hot) it transformed the woman’s menstrual blood into milk for the foetus which thus received its father’s characteristics (conception is explained like this by Aristotle and the Hippocratic Treatises).

In Rome, however, patrician women refused to breastfeed their children so as not to spoil their breasts, and looked for a wet-nurse. Greek wet-nurses on the other hand, with frequent iconographic and literary appearances, carried out the tasks of caring and washing as well as feeding children from a bottle, but rarely breastfed them. They were usually of an advanced age, and so couldn’t breastfeed. Goat’s milk was the substitute for mother’s milk in Greece, and was boiled before use. Goat’s milk was the easiest to find given the country’s terrain (very mountainous). A very popular myth tells that Zeus was breastfed in Crete by the goat Amalthea, which gives us an idea of how popular goat’s milk was.

In Antiquity, infancy was a period of uncertainty and difficult survival, which few overcame. For this reason, many newborns were not named in the first weeks and mothers tried not to establish emotional bonds with their babies as they would have to say goodbye prematurely.