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A mum-of-four has defended her decision to help her sister, who has low milk supply, by breastfeeding her nephew.

Janelle McAloon shared a video of her sister passing over her baby son so that he could continue breastfeeding, from his aunt. The video caption reads, “When your sister has low milk supply but you are a human cow’.

The TikTok video has amassed more than three million views, and attracted thousands of comments. Many fellow mums commented that they’ve done similar with their own sisters and nephews and nieces. While others were critical of an aunt breastfeeding her nephew.

@nellesworld ???????????? Anything for my nephew/sibling to my children. I ment to post with this sound #carryingyourlovewithme #nellesworld #sistergoals ♬ Carrying Your Love – David Morris

“I feel like this would hurt my feelings,” commented Autumn Shortridge.

Luna Fox said, “I couldn’t.. this bothers me.. but I’m glad it works for you guys.”

“My jealousy so deep I would think my baby would call my sister mum if this happened,” said Christine Marie.

While Maranda Mitchell added, “That’s not going to help your supply and most likely why it’s low.”

Janelle decided to address the comments in a follow-up video, saying she’s happy to answer any questions about the video.

“So she just got done breastfeeding her baby and he was still hungry, still crying, he wanted more milk,” Janelle explained. “She didn’t have enough so I was like, give me him, I’ll feed him for you. No it’s not like an everyday thing, I’m not just like feeding him all the time but I will help her.

“Like if she needs help and I know that she would do the same thing for me and it shouldn’t be considered weird to people, it’s literally just milk. It’s just nutrients for the baby.”

What is wet nursing?

Breastfeeding someone else’s child, or wet nursing, isn’t a new concept. It’s thought to have started as early as 2000BC – as a way to help mothers who were unable to breastfeed. There were no bottles or formula, so a wet nurse was the only option to keep a baby alive.

Women were also hired to breastfeed other (usually wealthy) women’s children.

Wet nursing is far less common now due to more awareness about the potential risks of infectious diseases that could be passed through breastmilk.

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  • Oh look get over it. As long as everyone involved is happy and bub is thriving then seriously who cares? its really no ones business and it might have been better if they didnt make it public and that way everyone could keep their shock and negative comments to themselves. Get a life

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  • That’s amazing! Great job. both mum and aunt are happy, as is the baby also. What an amazing bond the three of you will have. And how cool that you both have babies at the same time

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  • Thank you for sharing that story. O have mix feeling about it.

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  • Not for me. But if they are happy with it. Interesting to read about how it was in former times. Never heard of wet nurses.

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  • I’m not sure I’d ever want to feed someone else’s child or have someone else feed mine, however if they’re happy to do it then I don’t see there’s any issue.
    Having said that, when my youngest was a newborn, I had so much milk. I managed to free about 6 litres of milk and then we were moving so I looked into donating that milk. As it happened I didn’t get around to doing it and was able to move house with all the milk and none of it went to waste in the end.

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  • I’ve certainly heard about Mother’s hiring a wet nurse in times gone by. As long as it’s offered first and no offence is taken by either party then I see no problem with this. Different if it’s a friend who offers though. Don’t think I could handle that.

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  • This is so giving and great for the baby – all those extra and different antibodies!

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  • I don’t know how I would feel about this being I don’t have any female family members like that. I think I would feel sad

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  • Both sisters were in agreement so what’s the problem?

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  • Not for me. I ended up unable to breastfeed, but there’s no way I would have allowed someone else to.

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  • This is no different to milk donation only it is direct from the source. So nice of the sister and what a great bomd they must have.

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  • Glad to read so many on here are positive about it !

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  • each to their own! baby is getting fed and they are ok with it

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  • I think it’s great that the aunt can help out at this time. Doubt very much that the toddler will remember it either. It really is a personal matter between the two sisters.

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  • Don’t 100% agree with the action but I don’t have a problem with providing milk

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  • If the mother has no issue and the sister is fine then it’s no ones business. It’s something women have been doing for thousands of years. Just so long as the baby is healthy and fed it’s a non-issue

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  • How is it wrong? If it was donor milk it would be the same. Baby is getting feed so all it good.

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  • The comments saying that’s why her supply is low, don’t seem relevant. If a mother has a low supply and the baby is hungry, most mothers would supplement the feeding. It’s just our western culture typically does that by formula and a lot of mothers end up just going full time bottle feeding. Supplementing every now and then with breast milk seems like the perfect solution, especially when it’s her sister and they know the risks of pathogens!

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  • Lucky bub. So many that care is great to see. I had one child that never wanted much but my body just massively produced till I thought I would explode, then another child who drank so much I couldn’t keep up. My SIL never produced milk at all for any of her kids. Everyone is different but it’s great to see people helping others when they can.

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  • Why is this an issue? She is literally feeding a hungry baby. End of story. The mum is happy, the baby is fed and happy, why should anyone else’s opinion matter..?

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