Infant Mortality Variations, Feeding Practices and Social Status in London between 1550 and 1750

Living standards and plague in London, 1560–1665

“…Appleby, ‘Nutrition and disease’; Champion, London's dreaded visitation , pp. 81–97; Razzell and Spence, ‘History’; Newton, ‘Infant mortality variations’.…”

Sex Differences in Infant Mortality in Spitalfields, London, 1750–1839

“…A further possible source of bias in the burial records may result from the practice of sending infants away from their homes to be wet-nursed, which was common in wealthy families and for abandoned infants (Finlay, 1981;Newton, 2011). Nursing infants who died in the care of their wet-nurses or during the journey from London were usually buried and recorded in the local parish, rather than in the city (Fildes, 1988).…”

“…This would lead to an underestimation of the number of infant deaths relative to births. Information on the prevalence of wet-nursing during different periods is scarce, but there is some evidence to suggest that the practice was already far less common by the middle of the eighteenth century than in earlier periods (Newton, 2011). The number of nurse-children buried in parishes around London declined steeply in the early eighteenth century reaching very low numbers by the 1750s (Fildes, 1988) suggesting either that living conditions had improved substantially, or more likely that fewer infants were being sent from London for wet-nursing by the mid-eighteenth century.…”

“…The number of nurse-children buried in parishes around London declined steeply in the early eighteenth century reaching very low numbers by the 1750s (Fildes, 1988) suggesting either that living conditions had improved substantially, or more likely that fewer infants were being sent from London for wet-nursing by the mid-eighteenth century. Analysis of the 1695 Marriage Duty Assessment in conjunction with family reconstitutions revealed that more than 80% of expected children under 3 years were absent from wealthier households in Cheapside, suggesting nursing outside the parish (Newton, 2011). Nevertheless changes in cumulative infant mortality suggest that the practice of sending infants away from the parish for nursing was already much diminished by the early eighteenth century (Newton, 2011).…”

“…The effect of high residential mobility in London, combined with high rates of inward migration, has mitigated against family reconstitution studies (Smith & Oeppen, 2006). Exceptions to this include the partial reconstitution of eight London parishes from 1580 to 1650 (Finlay, 1981) and a detailed analysis of infant mortality in Cheapside and Clerkenwell between 1600 and 1753 based on family reconstitution (Newton, 2011). Most previous estimates of infant mortality in London relied on the Bills of Mortality or the records from sub-populations such as the Quakers (Landers, 1993).…”