You Go, Salma!

Caution: This post is opinionated. And you might not share my opinion.

Have you heard about Salma Hayak recently? http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=6854285&page=1 Salma was in Africa to help the fight against tetanus. She was in a hospital and presented with a hungry child who she decided to feed. Now here's the part that has the world talking... she nursed him. Being a breastfeeding mother of a one year old little girl, she had plenty of milk and decided to make a statement about breastfeeding to the people of Sierra Leone, who are of the opinion that breastfeeding women should not be sexually active - thus many of their babies are weaned at just a few months old.

That's the part that is taboo in Sierra Leone. The part that is Taboo! here in America is that she cross-nursed... suckled someone else's child. But I say, "You go Salma!" If faced with an otherwise-healthy, hungry little one around Lil's age (milk composition changes over time) I'd do the same thing. I think people make way too much of it... "Ooo, cooties!" There is a chance of spreading infection, I admit. But I don't have tuberculosis, syphilis, hepatitis-associated antigen, cytomegalovirus, herpes virus, or HIV; and there are many healthy women out there like me. And I think much of the stigma that is attached to nursing in general, but someone else's child in particular is the adult eroticism associated with the breasts. Though most people have no argument against the benefits of human milk and have no issues with the outsourcing of breast-milk through milk-banks.

I do feel I should mention that even La Leche League has an official position against cross-nursing, due to concerns about passing viral pathogens. But there is a growing group of women who are even choosing to employ wet-nurses for both personal and medical reasons.

oops, I stepped away from the computer to run to the commissary and now that I'm off my soapbox I've lost my momentum and train of thought. So, rather than try and figure out where I left off... dare I ask.... What do you think?