SOUTHERN URBAN DAILY, CNTV (China)
SHENZHEN – Magical elixir for those suffering? Status symbol for China’s super rich? Or just plain…CREEPY!?
The Southern Urban Daily was the first to report on the growing popularity among wealthy Chinese for drinking human milk.
“Human milk is the best of tonics, it’s even better than bird’s nest soup, especially after a major surgery,” said Lin Jun, who owns an agency providing domestic services in the booming southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, which distributes the product.
Lin’s idea for the business came from the fact that only the elite few can afford to hire a wet nurse for their babies, which he believed meant that those priveleged few adults might want some for themselves. The demand is far beyond his original expectation, he boasted to Southern Urban Daily.
A standard breast pump (planet_oleary)
“If necessary, one can have the breast-feeding directly from the nanny too,”” Lin also claimed, “As long as people are willing to pay, nannies rarely oppose the idea.”
According to the report, people with high incomes, intense work pressure and poor physical fitness are his main clients. They try to rebuild themselves with good nutrition and are increasingly convinced that human milk is the best for your health.
While a wet nurse destined to service a newborn is cheaper, the ones aimed to serve adults ask a monthly salary of around $2600. Healthy and good-looking young nannies cost even more.
The China Net Television reported that in fact drinking human milk isn’t popular just among convalescents but also among wealthy ordinary families in the coastal areas.
Wang Bin hired a wet nurse for a while last year. He is the sales director of a big company. Because of his long working hours he very often felt exhausted. A friend from Hong Kong told him human milk would help because it’s very nutritious. “I felt very uneasy with the idea in the beginning”, Wang said. Finally his wife agreed to the idea and Wang tried it out for a month. The woman stayed at their home. Each morning she’d pump her milk out and leave it on the dining table. Wang drank 3 to 5 times per day and 500-800 mililiters each time.
These reports have aroused a major buzz on China’s Internet in the past two days. “Pervert” is the reaction of many.
As to whether the human milk is so magical, Zhang Maoxiang, the director of the nutrition department of a hospital in Shenzhen stated that “For adults, the nutrients from their daily intake of food are enough. Human milk doesn’t have any obvious effect on adults. Paying a fortune to have a wet nurse’s service is obviously overdone.”
