Salma Hayek breastfeeding

[Anonymous]

I anticipated logging on tonight and seeing lots of opinions about her breastfeeding the malnourished baby in Sierra Leone. I happen to think her decision to feed this child was one of the most beautiful, generous gifts I have seen. I worked in Sierra Leone, and know that it is a very different world.

I was wondering about the response from others.

[Anonymous]

I thought it was great!

[Anonymous]

Really amazing -- what a gift!

[Anonymous]

Awesome!!

[Anonymous]

I was moved to tears when I saw the video.

Someone suggested on the General Parenting board that formula was a better option.

Yeah. Sierra Leoneans have ready, easy access to formula.

[Anonymous]

She told this story on the today show the other day. I thought it was an amazing thing to do.

[Anonymous]

I cried and get teary every time I think about it. It was so beautiful but so sad at the same time. One thing I didn't expect about becoming a parent is how much sadder I feel now every time I read about a child being hurt or in pain.

[Anonymous]

FYWIW, I did not breastfeed my children, but agree this was beautiful. I can't believe the backlash from people.

That said, the video on You Tube on this is weird. It doesn't seem that she is rescuing the child, and the mother of the child seems to be bewildered and note very grateful by the whole thing. I have to say that it seems from this video that Salma was looking for publicity. Is there another video that puts this in better context. (BTW, the child didn't seem malnourished; he was actually quite healthy looking; I make this point bc there at tons of other babies in Africa that are probably days away from dying from malnourishment -- wish she had helped one of them).

I love Salma, so please don't misunderstand. This is just my reaction.

[Anonymous]

I thought it was kind of icky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I thought it was kind of icky.

how so?

[Anonymous]

well you have to put things in perspective and I say this as a nursing mom. I think it's dangerous to encourage nursing other folk's kids because things can be passed along in breasmilk so it could unhealthy thing if the mom has hiv etc.. That being said..I am thinking that a starving child and their mother would happily take Salma Hayek's milk over death anyday. Also, because she is a huge star, maybe she can make some of the men in some of these countries reevaluate that a nursing mom is very sexy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FYWIW, I did not breastfeed my children, but agree this was beautiful. I can't believe the backlash from people.

That said, the video on You Tube on this is weird. It doesn't seem that she is rescuing the child, and the mother of the child seems to be bewildered and note very grateful by the whole thing. I have to say that it seems from this video that Salma was looking for publicity. Is there another video that puts this in better context. (BTW, the child didn't seem malnourished; he was actually quite healthy looking; I make this point bc there at tons of other babies in Africa that are probably days away from dying from malnourishment -- wish she had helped one of them).

I love Salma, so please don't misunderstand. This is just my reaction.

She was holding a different baby over her shoulder at the end (with the sullen woman sitting in the chair watching). The baby she nursed was a newborn.

[Anonymous]

Really, you need to take sexyness and nursing out of the same senence/thought pattern. This is why our society is so hung up on breastfeeding and why some people might refer to it as icky. They think it is icky because they have sexualized breasts and do not think of them as a means of nourishment. What is the deep seeded reason why people would be grossed out by this?

I call this backwards evolution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FYWIW, I did not breastfeed my children, but agree this was beautiful. I can't believe the backlash from people.

That said, the video on You Tube on this is weird. It doesn't seem that she is rescuing the child, and the mother of the child seems to be bewildered and note very grateful by the whole thing. I have to say that it seems from this video that Salma was looking for publicity. Is there another video that puts this in better context. (BTW, the child didn't seem malnourished; he was actually quite healthy looking; I make this point bc there at tons of other babies in Africa that are probably days away from dying from malnourishment -- wish she had helped one of them).

I love Salma, so please don't misunderstand. This is just my reaction.

She was holding a different baby over her shoulder at the end (with the sullen woman sitting in the chair watching). The baby she nursed was a newborn.

OK for those of you commenting on the mother's demeanor, have you EVER traveled to the poorest parts of Africa? I doubt it. People are sullen, this is the way they look. Many of them live miserable lives. They don't walk around with a skip in their step. Many of them suffer from terrible PTSD, especially the women and children who suffer the most, many of them brutally raped (which is a very common mode of control in nations in conflict). Even in developed South Africa, I notied the lack of smiles on many faces. Moms would carry the babies on their backs long distances or stand in the middle of a busy street begging for money as their toddler was strapped to their back for hours looking quite despondant.

Many of the dark black faces with beaming white smiles you see on TV are few and far between.

[Anonymous]

I loved it when she said she wondered what her daughter would think of another baby drinking her milk. Then she said she thought her daughter would want to share her milk with a baby who needed it, and planned to raise her to be generous. I don't know why, I just loved that statement.

It was especially moving for me, having pumped my breasts for almost a month after a stillbirth to accumulate enough milk for a donation to the milk bank. I felt the same way, that it was honoring my baby donating his milk to babies in need.

At the end of the day, that was a gift she gave a hungry baby. She would have had to pump and dump had she not fed him. Did you hear her on Nightline saying her grandmother did a similar thing in the streets of her home country for a starving woman and her baby? Wonderful.