[MandieD]

To be fair, high infant mortality was a sad fact of life before modernity, and it wasn’t all diseases. “Failure to thrive” was a common cause of death.

My aunt, born in 1941, was switched to formula after failing to nurse well. Despite those infant formulas being nowhere nearly as good as modern ones, she still grew up to be academically bright and athletic, and her younger sister, my mother, was witty and socially gifted.

If my grandmother hadn’t had that option, maybe my aunt would have eventually gotten the hang of it before my grandmother’s milk dried up, but being undernourished for however long that took might not have led to a woman who could get a geology degree - or any child who survived to adulthood.