heart-warming breastfeeding story

I found this story very compelling. And only partly because I am nursing my baby boy now.

Women step up to breast-feed motherless infant

Charles Moses Martin Goodrich was born at 3:26 a.m. Jan. 11 at Marquette General Hospital. Eleven hours after giving birth, his mother Susan Goodrich, 46, died of amniotic fluid embolism – a rare obstetric emergency that is not age-related, Goodrich said. Moses is the Goodrich’s second child – Julia was born in 2007 – and Susan’s fourth. Still in shock over his wife’s death, Goodrich realized he had to figure out a way to feed his newborn son.

“They didn’t carry any breast milk,” the history professor said about the hospital, so a nurse looked into getting some for Moses. As it turned out, the nearest place to get breast milk was in Kalamazoo, and it would take several days to have it delivered to Marquette.

In the meantime, Goodrich received a phone call from family friend Laura Janowski of Marquette, who was still nursing her fourth child, 1-year-old Emily. In her message, Janowski offered Goodrich to nurse Moses.

…

A schedule was put together with feeding times at 9 a.m., noon, 1:30 , 4 , 6:30 and 8 p.m. Six times a day a different mother has been feeding Moses for the past two months. During the night, Goodrich bottle-feeds his son breast milk that was pumped by the women.

“What amazes me is they are so committed,” Fraire said. “They would do it for anyone because they believe in this. They didn’t take it lightly and they don’t miss a day.”

Goodrich added: “It’s commitment, passion – it’s love. It’s an act of love.”

One of the forums I used to spend time on took an informal survey about cross-nursing. In a group of crunchier-than-average moms, about three quarters were pretty uncomfortable with the idea of someone else nursing their baby. In contrast, there was almost universal willingness to nurse someone else’s baby.

Anyway…reading this story made me wonder about cross-nursing. How common is it now? More common in other cultures, I’m sure – it’s hard to be more Puritan about these things than the average American. And what about group cross-nursing as described in this news story?

The father in this story hits on something that a lot of talk about the importance of breast-feeding misses. The benefits conferred by breast-feeding are not merely the result of superior nutrition – they are as much about the mother-baby time, eye contact, communication…in short, TIME. Something that bottle-fed babies can get too, if the bottle isn’t propped up and left, but something even the breastmilk fed baby can be denied if they are fed expressed milk from bottles propped up by distracted individuals.

That’s the real grace of this story, too. I don’t actually think it would have been a horrible thing for this father to give his baby formula. Considering the circumstances, it would have been pretty understandable if he hadn’t thought about it at all, just accepted whatever the nursery staff suggested. And his baby would grow up just fine.

But his desire to honor his wife’s wishes, and his desire to give their baby the best he knew how, opened the door to this lovely thing – a whole community of nurturers, a plethora of caregivers. No replacement for a mother, certainly. But in this tragic circumstance, what a blessing for both baby – and father.

But then, I’m a sucker for that sort of thing.

H/T Bearing Blog