Wet-nursing as a new strategy for orphan care in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia hosts more than 150 charitable institutions dedicated to vulnerable groups, such as orphan care associations that provide orphaned children with food, clothing, housing, and other care until they reach adulthood. The Al-Wedad Society for Orphan Care (ASOC) in Saudi Arabi operates a wet nursing program in which Saudi mothers breastfeed orphans in their care under specific conditions and circumstances. The program is intended to not only help the orphans survive and receive the psychological and nutritional benefits of breastfeeding but also establish kinship between the child and the members of the family providing the wet nursing and so support children's emotional wellbeing and belonging.

The ASOC wet nursing program was explored using two methods: content analysis of existing sources, such as documents and archival records, and in-depth interviews with ASOC full-time administrations and professional practitioners (n = 9). Data collection took approximately five months (January 2022 to May 2022).

The study reveals the positive values of wet-nursing as beneficial for both orphans and volunteer wet nurses. The results illustrate that the wet-nursing program has undertaken steps to ensure health and safety requirements of participants. The program elaborates many positives. First, after completing the breastfeeding program, the child becomes a relative of the whole family not only breastfed mother. Second, the breastfeeding could be a solution for many abandoned children dealing with a loss of identity as it gives them a sense of belonging to a family and community. Third, the child feels more secure and confident to interact normally with family members of the opposite sex especially upon reaching adolescence. They can communicate freely with fellow family members with fewer constraints, a greater sense of belonging, and less stigmatization than would otherwise be the case.

This ASOC wet nursing program has been successful in supporting the breastfeeding and legal belonging via milk kinship of children in alternative care families but challenges remain. More research is needed on the impact of programs such as the ASOC wet nursing program on children, alternative caregiving families and societies.