How Muslim Families Use Breastfeeding to Make Adopted Babies Their Own

How Muslim Families Use Breastfeeding to Make Adopted Babies Their Own

Under Islamic Sharia’a law, western adoption practices are frowned upon. When children are abandoned by their birth parents, they may become foster children of other families, but they are not allowed to take on their foster parents’ last name, or to have any rights of a mahram (an unmarriageable kin with whom sexual intercourse is considered incestuous). Only one thing has the power to overcome these restrictions: Breastfeeding.