WARNING! THE FOLLOWING BLOG SHOWS IMAGES OF BREASTFEEDING. WHILE THEY ARE NOT GRAPHIC, THEY MAY NOT BE SAFE FOR WORK.
I’m sure you have seen these odd stays show up in Pinterest or Google searches. They are identified as breastfeeding stays by most museums. But there has been some debate on the accuracy of that description. On various Facebook communities, I have seen people passionately debate the true purpose of these mysterious stays.
(Barcelona
museum of design)
People have doubted that the stays are truly for nursing
because of the location of the openings.
They appear too small and too low to be functional. The bright colors and fancy silks also seem
impractical for breastfeeding, which can get rather messy.
Most of the arguments against these being
breastfeeding stays are based on the idea that they could not be functional. Since I was home on maternity leave, I
decided to test them myself.
For my experiment, I sacrificed an old pair of stays.
As a
control, first I tried feeding my baby in the most common way seen in
contemporary art. I call it the “ up and
over.”
A few thing of note:
I found myself lacing the stays much looser than I had
before I was lactating. The breast
change size as they fill with milk and empty.
Tight pressure on them is uncomfortable and can cause clogged ducts or
even infection. It also gives more room
to adjust and move the breast around.
Because of this, my breasts were at their natural position, and not
pushed up like they would be with normal snug lacing.
Also, I found it a bit difficult to get the nipple up high
enough to comfortably nurse. When
properly laced, the nipple is just under the top edge of the stays and pushed
up a bit. Pulling it up more, so that
enough of the nipple was available for the baby to latch was rather
uncomfortable. And wiggling the stays down over the hips required loosening them quite a bit.
And finally, because of the smooth shape of the stays and
the extra height of my breasts, it was hard to hold the baby high enough for
him to feed. He needed to be higher than where my arms natural held him. And
because the stays were smooth and straight, he kept sliding down!
Next was to alter the stays.
The extant stays have opening in all different sizes, I assume to accommodate
different sized bodies.
( Large and small. Both from the Barcelona
museum of design)
I lightly marked
with a pencil where my opening needed to be and cut them out on three sides and
bound them. With the looser lacings, my
openings look to be in about the same position as the originals.
(Museo del traje)
I was worried that my shift would get in the way, but as the
stays were tightened, the extra fabric bunched in the center front, giving my
enough slack to uncover for the baby.
And while it is strange looking, my breasts were soft enough to fit
through the holes rather comfortably.
Now for the real test, can I nurse with them?
Yes, rather easily! Because
they were at the natural level, I could hold the baby as I normally do in, my bent arm, and he
could comfortably feed. He was able to
latch on well and I didn’t have any trouble moving around the stays. I found them much more practical than the “up
and over” way.
Final thoughts:
I was pleasantly surprised by how well these worked for
nursing. So much easier then feeding
with normal stays. There is no loosening and tightening of the stays, and it's a much more natural position for feeding. I’m surprised that
they were not more common outside of Spain. I can
understand that it is more economical to just use regular stays rather than
specific ones just for nursing, but women were pregnant so often, it could be worth the investment.
Most of the survivors appear to be lightle used and made of more expensive fabrics. But this could be a case of "survivor bias" The working class ones didn't survive.
( the only "lower class" example I could find from the Barcelona Musee de la mode. You can see that it did not hold up well over time)
All of the extant stays I have found are Spanish. Since Spain
(Typical examples of Spanish stays)
I'm so excited you did this! I mean what a heavily debated question. Also I bow down to your ability to nurse and take a photograph!
ReplyDeletethank you so much for this insight! Excellent case of experimental archaeology!
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if the use of wet nurses was different in Spain than in England, for example. It's interesting that most of the surviving altered stays are made of beautiful fabrics, which I would assume would get stained when used, and be difficult to clean to remove the stains, which suggests that wealthy women would have been wearing them.
ReplyDeleteIn England it seems to have been common for wealthy women to employ wet nurses to feed their infant children, which would mean that the mother of the child wouldn't need to nurse it at all, so no need for her to wear stays with breast flaps for nursing. The wet nurse would deal with all of that, and might wear front-lacing stays, or stays with a lower top edge, or corded jumps, or whatever.
In Spain, if the use of wet-nurses was less widespread, then the wealthy mothers who nursed their own children would have had both the need to alter their stays -- or wear something that they could nurse in -- and still look fashionable in between nursing sessions, as well as the money to have them made of decorative silks.
The true definition of experimental archaeology right here! Amazing that you tried it out. Perhaps more people will come to the conclusion that these were indeed made for that purpose. Yet still, until we find written or pictorial proof we can only speculate. Love that you did this!
ReplyDelete