British sisters-in-law Holly and Becky Stevens don’t just babysit each other’s children — they breastfeed them, too.
From best friends to breast friends, the moms revealed during an appearance on the U.K. show This Morning that they have been nursing one another’s babies for seven years, a practice that started almost accidentally when Holly’s son Freddy was just five days old.
What started simply out of convenience one day, while Becky was watching Freddy, who needed an emergency snack, became an unexpectedly practical parenting arrangement.
“It felt like a natural thing to do, and it didn’t feel odd,” Becky said, who at the time was still nursing her own son Foy.
Another time, Holly recalled arriving at Becky’s house without her breast pump and simply nursing Foy instead. A bonus was not having to lug bottles around an already overcramped baby bag.
“Less to pack,” Becky joked.
Seven years later, they’re still at it: Holly has nursed Becky’s newborn daughter Pearl, while the pair say breastfeeding one another’s children has only made their already tight-knit families closer.
While sharing milk may be unusual for some, the concept is nothing new.
Wet nursing — having a lactating woman breastfeed another woman’s child — dates back at least to 2000 B.C. and continued as an organized profession into the 19th century before bottles and infant formula largely replaced it.
But clearly, mothers are still sharing the love.
A 2025 JAMA study found that among nearly 2,000 mothers nationwide, 3.7% reported giving their babies shared breast milk during their first six months.
And Holly and Becky aren’t the only families who have crossed the breastfeeding divide.
In a Reddit discussion about nursing another person’s baby, one user recalled that her mother and twin sister had babies only months apart and would breastfeed both children while babysitting for one another.
Others were less enthusiastic, with reactions ranging from “Some people are ok with it, most aren’t” to simply: “Gross.”
“Typically wet nurses did all the feedings, not just once in a while,” Joanna Kreyling, a board-certified pediatric nurse practitioner and international board-certified lactation consultant at 1 Natural Way, told The Post.
Kreyling said that in the case of close relatives or friends, directly nursing another woman’s baby is not inherently unsafe if both mothers are transparent about their health, medications and other possible risks.
Still, she warned of potential risks on both sides: skipping normal feedings could leave a mother engorged and in pain. At the same time, the additional feeding could have the opposite effect, causing oversupply or engorgement once the extra feeds stop.
There are potential risks for babies, too.
Certain medications, supplements and other substances can pass through breast milk, while infections including HIV and, in some circumstances, herpes simplex virus can also be transmitted. Sharing a breast also means sharing saliva between babies, Kreyling noted, which could spread contagious illnesses.
And there is a more basic concern: making sure each child is getting enough to eat.
“Typically, an established milk supply is enough for one baby,” Kreyling said, warning that inadequate intake can cause dehydration, particularly in newborns.
The FDA warns against feeding babies any sourced milk that hasn’t been screened formally.
Those concerns were apparent in August, when the CDC reported that five California infants had potentially been exposed to HIV through breast milk donated via social media. Investigators ultimately found no evidence of transmission among the infants who were tested.
For Holly and Becky, however, the arrangement is less about making a statement and more about making motherhood easier, and they shrug off any negativity.
“It’s so convenient,” Holly said.
“Milk is milk.”
Read the full article here
