Salma Hayek cross-nurses in Sierra Leone
During a humanitarian trip to Sierra Leone supporting a tetanus-vaccination project, Salma Hayek cross-nursed a sick newborn. (ABC made the mistake of saying the child was born on the same day as her daughter - they actually just share the same birthday.) I tend to feel similarly with Hoyden About Town's post on this. (Watch the entire segment here.)
What are folks' thoughts?
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I love this. It was featured on the View today too and I LOVED that Whoopi pointed out how ridiculous it was that they were blurring out her nipple.
This makes me love Salma Hayek... partly because, as Hayden About Town's post says, she gave of herself something that someone really needed, rather than coming in and trying to give people some kind of charity. (I may be biased because I love her, but I also assume she would have done the same thing whether or not the cameras were there.)
I also love the fact that she is so unabashedly pro-breastfeeding and shows no shame about it -- a stance that is surprisingly controversial and I can never figure out why.
People have such weird issues about breastfeeding. From grown men who feel overly proprietal about breasts, to all the people who think breasts are "dirty" and sexual--grow the fuck up! It's about feeding a baby, nothing else. The only issue I have with cross-nursing is that it is an exchange of bodily fluids, and in this day and age you have to be careful about that sort of thing because you nerve know what diseases someone might be carrying.
I really like Salma Hayek. If she had a sandwich in her hand and came across a hungry child, would anyone fault her for giving the sandwich to the child? Of course not. She came across a hungry baby and had extra milk as her daughter was weaning, so she fed him. End of story. I'd do the same thing (if I had been able to breastfeed.)
Really. Humans are included as "mammals" for a reason, right?
Really, who gives a crap about this stuff?
The story might seem like celebrity fluff to you at first glance, but breastfeeding and world hunger are really important and overlooked feminist issues.
The issue of breastfeeding is huge, and nutrition for new mothers and infants and mortality rates of infants and mothers are showing scandalous statistics.
The fact that this woman is using her celebrity to bring this issue to people's attention is great. And the answer to your question of "who cares" will hopefully include a lot more people thanks to this publicity.
Who cares? People who recognise that breastfeeding (or the lack of/disturbance of it) is a very important and valid issue, affecing women and babies in very serious ways, all around the world. This isn't just about Salma's breast or the shock over her cross-nursing, it's about how she highlighed the dire situation in Sierra Leone and how women are being prevented from or persuaded not to breastfeed and how their babies are dying because of it. Even in the United States and other Western societies, women are not properly supported in breastfeeding. Instead they get bad, conflicting advice, judgment, and an assurance from the formula companies that their product is just the same as the real thing, or better. It's one of the first of many ways in which new mothers are disempowered and told that their bodies are broken or a burden.
If you can't see that as a credible feminist issue, I hold out little hope that many 'modern' feminists will ever get their heads out of their backsides and recognise the problems mothers face as valid and important. I'm tired of these issues being marginalized and denigrated.
not to flog a dead horse here or anything, but I just wanted to do a +1 on the two posters above. Breastfeeding is a huge deal relating to several issues that include women's rights (but not limited to). I'm afraid I no longer have the reference on that, but I distinctly remember reading about I believe it was nestle giving out formula samples to poor mothers in india - rather like one of the ways formula was over-promoted in places like the US and elsewhere. Skipping the breast has all sorts of consequences ranging from the undesirable or impractical to the dangerous, particularly in really poor parts of the world, including places where obtaining clean water is an issue. Really, apart from, IIRC, cases where the mother has aids/is HIV+ (someone will elaborate on that for me, I'm sure someone will have all the deets to hand), I can't recall any other situation where feeding a child mother's milk is contra-indicated.
On the same site (Hoyden's), check out this link on a story for a chinese policewoman nursing a baby orphaned by the earthquake in China:
http://viv.id.au/blog/?p=1739
It includes some info about the feeding of infants in disaster aftermaths, and some of it applies to areas permanently in very bad shape, it's an interesting read, with a rather heartwarming pic of the cop, in uniform, with the baby :-)
Obviously YOU do, otherwise you would have clicked "back" when you saw what the article was about. That's OK, I won't tell. It'll be our little secret.
I know that wet nurses used to be common centuries ago, and that babysitters and other caretakers (as for the elderly and disabled) still do fairly intimate things for strangers, but the notion of breastfeeding someone else's baby just creeps me out.
It is so unusual in our society to see ordinary breastfeeding behaviors (e.g. wet nursing, nursing toddlers/preschoolers)--it still creeps a lot of people out to see a baby breastfeeding AT ALL. I think your reaction is normal, but one worth striving to overcome.
yeah, that's a thoughtful way to put it, I like how you didn't jump at her or anything :-)
but azinyk, you can overcome this creep-out, like socbaker said, because you already have that most useful of tools at your disposal, the historical perspective (ie you know about wet nurses and how common they were). I find that whenever I see something i begin by finding strange or confusing, a historical perspective really helps me sort things out. Okay, it might be I'm a history geek, but I do think knowledge of history helps build a good bullshit detector (for example, if all the people who over-borrowed without believing the, admittedly few, experts who insisted it was bound to come crashing down had been taught history a bit better, they'd have known all about the other times something similar happened, and wouldn't have bought the BS with quite as much enthusiasm, I think).
So you know, this was happening quite a lot before formula; if a child's mother died (and that happened too often, what with childbed deaths), the only way to prevent the baby from starving was to feed the kid another woman's milk. Nothing gross about that, very human and actually useful - imagine if for some reason things had been say like blood transfusion, where you need to ensure compatibility? That would have been bad news. So the fact that it isn't is another way to figure out it's just the normal state of affairs, cross-nursing seems to be something of a built-in feature ;-)
I don't really get that, and that baby *needed* the breastmilk. Why prioritize squick over a child's wellbeing?
I felt the same way, until I had my own. I actually was even quite weirded out by the idea of breastfeeding my own child. My mother always said if any baby needed it, she'd nurse them. Then, after my own son, I was helping my sister learn how to breastfeed her newborn in the hospital and my mother asked me if I understood, if I had any sort of urge to just put my nephew to my own breast. Lo and behold, I did have the urge. So I've never cross-nursed, but now I feel like my mother does... if any baby needed it.
I'd like to think that I would do the same thing if I could.
It IS ridiculous that they blurred her nipple. Breast feeding isn't sexual, breasts aren't dirty or filthy or anything that anyone hasn't seen before, why blur them?
Why blur them ever then? Should we only blur them when they are presented in a "sexual" way?
I agree - why blur them ever? We shouldn't.
If Western culture wasn't so obsessed with covering them up, people wouldn't be so obsessed with looking.
I honestly don't think they should ever be blurred. The human is a beautiful, never shameful, thing and should celebrated, not shunned.
This is actually an interesting inversion of the wet nurse idea, since that was common in a time when it was considered uncouth for upperclass women to breastfeed. So it's interesting on an academic level, but on a human level it's just, well, human. There's a child with a need, and she was able to provide.
Following up on MikeT's post, I think the intimacy 'given' by caretakers sometimes correlates with class and race differentials, where those that are doing the caretaking are often on the losing part (think black women/white babies, or indigenous women/white baby in cases of colonial situations). One could say that the the privileged take care of the underprivileged much less often if at all, and much less in this receptive, intimate way.
In other words, I think it was an extremely generous thing to do for Salma Hayek, and something that requires offering a vulnerability that most of us are not into offering to the other in this day and age.
Finally, contrast this with other celebrities' attitudes, which involve adopting babies and giving charity money, further inscribing hierarchies!
why is it extremely generous when as you've stated the wet nurse situation as existed for a long time. is it because the baby is darker than her?
Probably for the reasons she explicitly stated in the first paragraph.
so in other words because salma is lighter, her actions take on greater significance because she is flipping the script. i get it
No, because she's wealthy. No one said anything about race.
so? how many overtly or covertly sexist reports use the word gender or sex. does that mean it isnt implied. we hear just about nothing regarding the mom or anyone else involved. they are silent, since they mean little in the grand scheme, other than props for the message being conveyed, that this is 'oh, so generous," since when black women do it, its 'oh so their job.'
I'm wondering what the story is on the mother as well...is she completely absent or is nobody wanting to talk about her?
Or because in the past wet nurses typically had little choice about what they did, either because they were servants, slaves, or poor women with few opportunities for work. The social and economic reality is that the underprivileged must often 'service' those who are wealthy. This doesn't mean that Hayek breastfeeding a child from a poor community means she's a hero because she deigned to descend from her life of wealth to feed a baby, while women in the past just did it because they had to. It's the fact that she had a real choice in performing such an intimate task. It doesn't make her breastfeeding 'better' than wet nurses in the past, but the overall context of that intimate contact is completely different.
Of course, I can't speak for feministnc (who made the original comment that you responded to) but hopefully I correctly interpreted her/his point.
I'll respond to my own comment since I've thought about that a little further. I don't even think it's necessary to discuss class to explain the distinction between this act and that of a wet nurse. Payment (or servitude) is enough. If a developer hires a landscape company to turn a run-down piece of land into a beautiful park that is far different than a group of citizens coming together to do the same thing. The example of
There is plenty of room for class discussion regarding the fact that wealthy people like Hayek have the luxury of being able to take time and afford the travel to perform these acts of charity. Obviously that's not a luxury people who are struggling to survive are afforded. But the initial question was simply how this is any different than wet nurses.
Because she's not getting paid for it, as the wet nurse is. Giving something away because someone needs it is generous. Selling it for money is doing your job. I hope that's put simply enough for you, because I can't think of a way to simplify it further.
I assume your last paragraph is targeted at the Jolie-Pitt family, which I don't understand. If they want to adopt children, then they certainly have every right to do that.
At its core, their donating to charity can do far more for babies in the developing world than Hayek BF one child one time. That's not to say she shouldn't have done it, but certainly it shouldn't be a reason to shit on others' charitable work.
It wasn't so much that richer women nursing were considered uncouth as it was that nursing delays further pregnancies and noblewomen were expected to produce as many heirs as possible.
Why yes, let's talk about Salma Hayek's breast when there are starving children in the picture.
(Also, it's Hoyden About Town).
I don't think this post or the story was about her breasts or the notion that her breasts trump the starving children she is photographed with. It's about public opinion on breastfeeding generally and cross-nursing specifically. There is nothing inherently wrong with discussing the impact/reception of public cross-nursing or breastfeeding, even when the subject is a privileged celebrity (although the fact that a privileged celeb is cross-nursing a starving child should be a central part of the discussion).
I don't know much about the specifics of this case beyond what's in the link, but in many situations children are starving *because* women are discouraged from breastfeeding. So a discussion of cross-nursing may be key to addressing the issue of starvation in children, rather than a distraction from it.
I think what she did is awesome. It would have been nice to hear the mother's voice a little though.
Good point, it would have been interesting to see what the baby's mother thought about it. I wonder if that was a matter of the television producers not interviewing her for whatever reason, or if she just wasn't interested in being on TV.
I agree--the voices of the people in the community she was visiting should have been heard, especially the mother of the baby. Typical and shameful on the part of those who produced the story that they weren't...
It would have been nice, to hear, but maybe the mother had died? That was what I first thought, but they don't say.
I think it's absolutely wonderful, very sweet, and the baby is cute. People forget what breasts are really for.
the mom is very much alive, but in these sorts of stories they are mere props for the image the western press wants to put out, so their silence is necessary. who cares how they feel about it
Or maybe the mother is ill and can't do it. Cholera dehydrates and kills large numbers of people in that part of the world. Add in malnutrition and there's a good chance the mother couldn't feed the kid.
where did you get the cholera bit from? not only isnt it reported in any of the articles, it isn't a big issue in SL. in zimbabwe yes, but that's thousands for miles away.
Cholera is found throughout the tropics. It's not as bad in Sierra Leone as Zimbabwe, but it does happen, as do many other infections that lead to dehydration.
Two of my co-workers are from SL and a third from Ivory Coast, and dehydration due to disease is a serious problem in the region.
very good point. at least to hear something about her.
There was a "ew gross weird" post in my local newspaper's online celebrity section - followed by 43 comments from readers. One comment was sleazy, the other 42 entirely supportive of Hayek, breastfeeding, and the idea of nursing someone else's baby. Two readers had family members who had survived infancy only by being breastfeed by non-relatives.
that's an interesting post! It's a nice breakdown of how it turned out in one newspaper, like a mini-study :-) At this stage, you'll still find some people who are alive only because someone other than their mother b/f 'ed them - I suspect in later generations people in such circumstances will owe it all to formula, won't they? I mean, in the rare cases where a woman can't breast-feed at all or isn't there to do it, how do they cope, just formula probably right? Does anybody know, any pediatricians/ pediatric nurses around?
Yeah, they use formula. I've heard of a few people who bought milk from other women, but that's pretty rare. Generally, if the mother can't breast feed, they'll just feed the baby formula.
I think this is amazing, it makes me really like Salma. I think there is such a negative notion around breastfeeding, when in fact it is a natural, beautiful, and life saving part of life. Keep breastfeeding Salma
Just in regards to the shit that Hayek got for breastfeeding her child at 13 months - in the video in the link below (at -2:50), a nurse is asked "Would you like to see them all breastfeed for a year?" and replies "Two years - that would be ideal." So while in third-world countries, NGOs fight for the culture to recognise that breastfeeding this long is a GOOD thing, ostensibly educated people in the West blithely complain that Hayek breastfeeding at 13 months is disgusting, perverted, child abuse, and unhealthy. ?!?!?!
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/Story?id=6804291&page=1
Wait...she's getting crap for breastfeeding at 13 months? I...there are no words.
Well, actually, there are words, but they're all rude and they'd get repetitive at a certain point. ::coughs::
Seriously, when I saw people upthread say something about her getting negative attention for breastfeeding, I assumed she was breastfeeding her three-year-old or something. But 13 months???
I hate the world sometimes.
Whoa, yeah, 13 months? I breastfed my son until around 18 months, and only stopped then because he lost interest. I myself was breastfed until nearly age 3, and I was tandem nursed with my infant sister. 13 months freaks people out??
apologies if this has already been said-but i remember this debate back in RE class and my sentiments are the same. this is evidence of a patriarchal society that womens breasts are perfectly fine to be used to advertise products and for mens pleasure, but there's outrage when a woman *gasps* breast feeds in public because heaven's forbid THATS WHAT THERE THERE FOR! (apart from our own pleasure too!). seriously-considering the amount of tit's i see staring at me from mens magazines-anyone complaining about this needs to STFU!
Perhaps it should be slightly tempered by an interview she gave a few months back.
so? how many overtly or covertly sexist reports use the word gender or sex. does that mean it isnt implied. we hear just about nothing regarding the mom or anyone else involved. they are silent, since they mean little in the grand scheme, other than props for the message being conveyed, that this is 'oh, so generous," since when black women do it, its 'oh so their job.'
On the other threads, people are debating about when the "benefit" of breastfeeding ends -- one year, two years, pre-school, etc. It's a silly question. Breastmilk does change over the months/years to meet the growing child's needs but it never turns into soda pop or grease-laden French fries. It is a very healthy food whether the consumer is 2 months, 2 years, 5 years or (gasp) an adult. And yes, there ARE studies demonstrating that the LONGER a child breastfeeds the smarter the child will be, on average.
More importantly, there has never been any study showing a risk or detriment to healthy women breastfeeding. So even if there were no medical benefits (and there are) WHO CARES? We don't tell parents, "You need to stop hugging that little girl as soon as she turns 2, because there are no studies showing that hugging after age 2 has any benefit." Just leave parents the hell alone, ya know?
As for what Salma did.... It was a beautiful one-time gift and very inspiring. It won't save the child's life in the long-run because it is just one meal, but what a beautiful example to the rest of the world.
I don't really like the term "cross-nursing." It made me feel like she was going to nurse an animal of another species -- as I have seen videos of women nursing chimpanzees, etc. (I'm talking about humanitarian stuff, not porn, okay. Compassion does move some women this way, just as I've known farmers who gave CPR to puppies or goats w/o giving it a second thought.)
Sigh. Seeing that it was applied to nursing a darker skinned baby didn't make me feel better about the term -- even though I don't think it was intended that way.
Cross-nursing seems to be a legit term, but I just don't like it. I tried to think of a better term. Wet-nursing sounds a bit... wet. LOL
I think I'd just call it.... nursing. "Salma Hayek nurses starving child in Sierre Leone." Yep, I think that says it all.
Scientists call it breastfeeding. My little girl calls it na-nu. That works for us.
I'm in total agreement. And I wonder what my daughter will call breastfeeding once she begins speaking.
My husband and I were discussing this, and he noted that breastfeeding shouldn't necessarily be a feminist issue because what is important is that the child or children in question are being fed appropriately and healthily; when I feed my daughter, it isn't about me, it's about her. I agree that it shouldn't be something feminism needs to address, but every time society tries to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body, or how her body is in some way unclean or obscene, feminism must rise to address it.
It's all too unfortunate that there are so many babies, the world over, who are being fed an inappropriate and insufficient food because their mothers have been taught that they shouldn't breastfeed for purely cultural reasons (and this applies to North American women as much as women in Sierra Leone or anywhere else in the world. My sister-in-law thinks breastfeeding is "gross", so her two children are formula fed. Who taught her that it's gross? A long family history of formula feeding and a culture of so-called propriety.)
How sad that a mother acting on her natural instincts to feed an infant is a provocative news event. That said, Viva Selma! Her beauty doesn't just run skin deep.
I loved the story, but I was kinda freaked out when Selma started talking about the milk as being her child's.... not FOR her child, but as if it were owned by her child. I wanted to say, "It's yours Selma! You made it!"
My other issue is, who is going to talk to the men and tell them that they are killing their children because they want to have sex?! Please!! Someone take men to task!!!!! If you think you can't have sex with a lactating woman, then abstain until your kid is healthy. Come on!
Once again, all child rearing burdens are placed on the mother.
"It's yours Selma! You made it!"
Actually it belongs to both of them. Selma would not have that milk if her daughter was not born and still nursing.
I knew Selma had beautiful breasts, I didn't know they were heroic as well.
The story was about tetanus, not about breastfeeding. Many people are forgetting that was why she was there to begin with.
That she fed a child with her milk was a gesture; that is a good example for us all. We who live in affluence, with food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, and every possible convenience have no idea what it's like to be hungry, to watch your child starve, to watch your sisters starve, to watch, helpless.
There's so much I could say, about men and women who think that nursing is supposed to be limited to some arbitrary age, to men and women who think it's a sexual act, to the societal pressures of seeing a breast uncovered - either in the act of nursing or just uncovered. But it would take me months to say it all.
But don't forget the tetanus issue.