My great grandmother had 18 pregnancies. She lost two as stillborns and two starved at her breast. She raised 14 children.

But, it's not really so long ago that women had these problems. My mom had babies between 1963 and 1970. She had eight known pregancies, but only four live births. She was never able to nurse well. Her milk came in late, then flowed too fast and too much for her babies to take in. She always developed mastitis and had to have her milk dried out to resolve the issue. The longest she nursed any of us was me, for three months. Proper formula wasn't widely available in rural Tennessee where my we moved right after I was born. He was in the Navy and they would insist on living in the back beyond rather than on the base. Two of my sisters were born in Tennessee too. Mother drove 30 miles and bought formula at the commissary in Millington once a month. It wasn't available in only grocery store in her rural community.

One of my sisters was also unable to nurse due to health issues. She was a farmer's wife and did most of her shopping at the co-op, where they did not sell it. She had her baby in 2003 and had to drive into the nearest town for formula.

Also, formula, especially back then, causes constipation in babies. That's something I suffered from then and still deal with today. When I had my son, my caesaran incision failed and had to be reopened. For three days, I had to feed formula to my son until the drugs were through my system. You cannot imagine how distressing it was for my newborn to not poop for nearly five days! After two days back on breastmilk, when he finally did, it was a blowout!