An increasing number of wealthy women in Shenzhen, a go-go economic hub in southern China, are paying wet nurses—not for their babies—but for themselves.
Lin Jun, a manager at Xinxinyu Household Service Company in Guangzhou Province, told the Southern Metropolis Daily on July 2 that his company was now selling breastmilk to adults, especially those under high stress from demanding jobs.
Clients can drink breast milk through direct breastfeeding or, if they feel uncomfortable about that prospect, they can choose the breast pump option, Lin told the paper.
A spokesperson for Xinxinyu told the South China Morning Post that Lin’s claims were slander intended to ruin his company. Yet, advertisements for wet nurses from Xinxinyu were on a number of marketing websites.
The career of playing wet nurse to adults earns an average monthly salary of 16,000 yuan ($2,560) according to the Daily, but healthy and good-looking wet nurses may earn more.
The new phenomenon comes after a milieu of food poisoning scandals, where the Chinese public has grown increasingly suspicious of a multitude of foods, including baby formula milk, which in 2008 saw a scandal that caused more than 300,000 babies to be sickened, and at least six to die.
The tradition of wealthy people hiring wet nurses to feed babies dates back to antebellum America when Caucasian women lent their babies to women slaves on the farm for breast-feeding. But usually they didn’t keep the milk for themselves.
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