We recently had a post about the 17 year old given the wrong baby in hospital who when she found out was no longer able to feed her own.

Maybe these two stories will help.

In Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian culture (and in many others ) there is a name for the relationship between babies who have been fed by the same mother  - that is of milk brother and sister. So my children both have milk brothers and sisters after I fed other children for various reasons (their own mum late back, donor milk to a sick baby in NICU etc)

Also, once at a conference I heard a crying baby and went out to investigate. He was clearly very hungry and his mum was nowhere in sight and after waiting what seemed an age I impulsively fed the baby. After my instincts had settled down and the mother came back (and my brain kicked in and I wondered what she would say) she was very grateful because I had fed her hungry child.

Perhaps the thing would be to get the two mums and their babies to meet and talk it through. The sensitive issue will probably be how they feel about the whole thing, but if they can actually see each other and the two babies and make it a person not an unnamed face, and just may be if they get on the two babies will become milk sisters/brothers

Just thought



Mary E Black
Professor of Public Health 
Department of Social and Preventive Medicine
North Queensland Clinical School
Cairns QLD 4870 Australia

Tel (61) 740 503670 Fax (61) 740 534122
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