Salma Hayek Breastfeeds Baby In Sierra Leone
What’s that? This isn’t news, you say? Well, it kinda is, since it wasn’t Salma’s baby. The actress, in war-torn Sierra Leone with a camera crew to showcase the fight against tetanus, nursed the little baby when his mother ran out of milk:
The 42-year-old, who has a one-year-old daughter Valentina, was touring a hospital when she came across a mother who was unable to feed her baby boy.
Although TV cameras were there from ABC’s Nightline news programme, the actress did not hesitate.
Hayek said: ‘The baby was perfectly healthy, but the mother did not have any milk. He was very hungry – I was weaning my daughter Valentina, but I still had a lot of milk, so I breast-fed the baby.’
She added: ‘It was amazing because he’s really looking at me and he’s very little. My baby is one year so she can suck a lot harder.’
Hayek later admitted she worried about betraying her daughter, but she added: ‘I thought about it, am I being disloyal to my child by giving my milk away?
‘I actually think my baby would be very proud to be able to share her milk and when she grows up I will make sure she continues to share and be generous caring person.’
She went on to recall how her great-grandmother had helped out a woman in a similar fashion.
She explained: ‘My great-grandmother was in a Mexican village and they found a woman in the street inconsolably crying and the baby was also crying, crying, crying.
‘My great-grandmother went up to her and said “What is the matter?” and the mother said, “She is very, very hungry and I have no more milk”.
‘And in the street my great-grandmother took the baby and breastfed that baby who instantly stopped crying and went peacefully to sleep.
‘It was amazing (to breastfeed another child) because I was really impressed by (my great-grandmother’s) story. I’m here in Sierra Leone and I was able to feed a baby that was very hungry.’
In a world where we are constantly reading and reporting on the selfishness and self-centered actions of celebrities, including those who visit war-torn countries, it is like cool rain on a hot day to read about something like this. And it’s awesome not only because she performed a charitable act of mercy, but because this footage is being shown on national television. I haven’t given one of these out for a while, but she gets a Breath Of Fresh Air Award.
Angelina who?
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I have gained a new appreciation for Salma. I think it was incredibly awesome and motherly for Salma to breastfeed a sick baby who was not hers. This is an age’s old tradition, hence the name “wet nurse.” Back before the invention of the vastly inferior baby formula, women who were unable to breastfeed their baby often used a wet nurse to help care for infants until they could eat more grown up food. It’s a life-saving act.
You rock Salma, great post k!
Comment by D — February 11, 2009 @ 11:40 am
My grandma gave birth to twins in the mid-1940s. After feeding her twins, she would travel up the road to the hospital to nurse babies whose mothers could not. I’m proud of Salma. Even though she gets “credit” because cameras were there, breastfeeding is considered a very intimate thing in the US, even if not in other countries where it is the rule (and a requirement of life). Down with formula!
Comment by P2 — February 11, 2009 @ 2:16 pm
This is a new low in pandering. That African mother should keep her problems to herself. And Salma Hayak what a pig. Salma are you special? Or do you owe black people something?
The publicity this story is generating – that’s what Salma Hayak wanted.
Comment by Lyn — February 11, 2009 @ 3:46 pm
Had Salma wanted publicity for what she did, she would have publicised it…in SEPTEMBER, when it happened. We’re just now hearing about it. Not everything a celeb does that is good is for their OWN good.
Besides, if Salma was pandering, she would have thrown some money at the mother and ran out with the baby to keep as her very own and then “leaked” the story to the press. Why yes, I did say that.
Comment by k — February 11, 2009 @ 5:26 pm
I love Salma. She’s one of my favorite celebrities. Great looking, smart, and apparently considerate.
I think Lyn needs to go get a nice cup of tea and chill out.
Comment by Brooke — February 11, 2009 @ 11:31 pm
Have we become so jaded as a society that we no longer regard celebrities as human? Due to their celebrity, can they no longer behave in a way that shows compassion and humanity? Celebrities are human, and I choose to believe that at least somr of them have retained some of the integrity and empathy that the rest of us ‘real humans’ have.
Salma did what felt right to her… and I applaud her for it.
For a change, we could all take a little lession from a celebrity, Ms. Hayek, who reminded us what it means to give in a way that many of us who aren’t billionaire’s can…
Comment by glp — February 12, 2009 @ 9:37 am
K~
Thanks for posting this… its a nice story to start my day.
Comment by glp — February 12, 2009 @ 9:37 am
Wow, interesting. I wonder if Jolie is kicking herself for not thinking of doing this first, given her current earth-mother image and all.
Comment by Jannah — February 12, 2009 @ 1:56 pm