Human breast milk is the latest delicacy amongst China’s wealthy, with a growing number of companies offering wet nurses for adults.
Xinxinyu, a domestic staff agency in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, allows adult clients to drink directly through breastfeeding or via a breast pump ‘if they feel embarrassed’.
Wet nurses for adults are paid four times the Chinese average at around 16,000 yuan (£1,700) a month and those who are ‘healthy and good looking’ could earn even more, company owner Lin Jun told the Southern Metropolis Daily.
Beliefs are held in some part of the country that human breast milk is the easiest and most digestible form of nutrition for those who are ill.
However, this bizarre new trend has sparked outrage and disgust amongst web users with many condemning the practice as unethical.
An online poll found that 90 per cent of people voted against the service claiming it ‘violated ethical values, while ten per cent of those who took part said it was ‘normal business practice’.
Chinese media commentator Cao Baoyin said: ‘This adds to China’s problem of treating women as consumer goods and the moral degradation of China’s rich.’
There were also around 140,000 postings about the topic on Sina Weibo, which is the Chinese equivalent to Twitter.
Weibo user Ricky Gao likened drinking human breast milk to ‘pornography’, saying, ‘people become perverts when they are too rich and tired of other forms of entertainment’
But Xiao Shuai added: ‘It’s just business. People are insensitive about ethics when there is money on the table.’
In a separate development, Xinxinyu has been ordered to suspend its operations and has had its business licence revoked for missing three years of annual checks.
Regulators did not list offering a wet nurse service to adults as a reason for the suspension.
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