Parenting

This mum breastfed a stranger’s hungry baby and everyone went crazy

She was kicked off social media, trolled by people she’d never met, glorified by others and hounded by media – now she's back and she has responded.

The first story about mum-of-six Rebecca Wanosik broke over the weekend. Someone had happened upon her post about being asked to feed a baby that wasn’t her own, and whose mum she didn’t know.

While this sounds a little odd, there’s more to the story. The hungry baby’s mum was having surgery and the person looking after the baby couldn’t get her to feed from a bottle. So Rebecca, who is currently feeding her own poppet and confesses to having milk to spare thought nothing of sharing her supply with this mummy-missing hungry infant.

Then the Missouri mum posted a pretty amazing photo of both littlies, tandem feeding, eyes closed, holding hands. And then the world erupted.

This post below has been shared more than 82,000 times, received 194,000 responses and 40,200 comments. And it also helped in getting Rebecca kicked off Facebook.

While most people supported Rebecca and her selfless act, there were obviously some people who found it a difficult concept – and images – to swallow.

“Cover up!!!! Nobody wants to see your breast. This is Facebook not sexbook.” Others questioned whether the photos were put up there just to provoke responses.

Facebook responded and disabled her account – then her husband, Anthony, pictured with Rebecca below, joined the battle. “Love the support from everybody who is showing love to my wife for doing a selfless act!!! She didn’t do it for the attention, she did it because that is who she is and that is one of the many reasons why I love this woman!!!

A few hours ago, Facebook let her back on and she posted a message to all those people who had some issues.

“If you don’t like it, don’t look! If you’re incapable of seeing this at face value for what it is, don’t look! If you think your man will be tempted to cheat on you, you can look but get a new man. THIS IS NORMAL AND NATURAL ANNNNND ALLOWED ON FB!

And to clear up ANY misconceptions here are some FPC (Frequently Publicized Concerns)

  1. I did NOT just pick up a baby on the side of the road that looked hungry.

  2. I had permission from the other child’s mother to post the photos

  3. The other mother and I have a mutual friend who knew enough about me to KNOW I could safely feed her baby. She wouldn’t have consented otherwise. (Hence it being a “strangers baby”)

  4. I’m disease free. Unless being a badass is actually contagious? But after recent events I’d assume not.

  5. I did what ANY compassionate woman should have done. Period.

  6. No I didn’t fake my account being disabled, I have 6 children. Ain’t nobody got time for that!

  7. All of the people who were supportive and flooded my inbox with messages THANK YOU!

  8. All of the people who weren’t

  9. Boobs.

As you were…”

And then she made that quite extraordinary tandem feeding shot her cover photo and probably finally turned her computer off.

As her husband Anthony wrote on his own Facebook page when hers was disabled: “I went to bed just a regular guy. I woke up married to a celebrity!! I guess life is great!!”

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