Hayek to diminish stigma for breastfeeding women · 2009-02-12 14:11
Salma Hayek breastfed another woman's baby during a trip to Sierra Leone in front of "Nightline" cameras.
Hayek, 42, discovered the child, who's mother was unable to produce milk, during a tour of a hospital in the war-torn country, New York Daily News reports.
"The baby was perfectly healthy, but the mother did not have any milk," she later recalled to USA Today. "He was very hungry ??“ I was weaning my daughter Valentina, but I still had a lot of milk, so I breastfed the baby."
The actress was told by doctors in Sierra Leone that many mothers stop breastfeeding their infants within the first few months after birth because of pressure from their husbands. Tradition has it, in some areas, that it is not acceptable to have sexual relations with breast feeding women.
According to ABC News, Sierra Leone has the highest infant mortality rate in the world, in part fueled by malnutrition. Physicians there told Hayek they would like to see mothers breastfeed for a full two years but that stigma too often gets in the way.
Hayek said her decision to breastfeed another woman's child was an attempt to diminish the stigma placed on women for breast feeding.
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