Survival against all odds

They say that a mother's love is the strongest thing on earth. Here's why. Two mothers who used their last breaths to save their children. My heart breaks for all those who have lost everything to the capriciousness of nature.
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(taken from a lactation e-mail list I'm on)


China Earthquake - Baby Survival Stories
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Under the rubble, dead mothers tightly held their babies; baby girl stayed alive by breastfeeding from dead mother Singtao News (written in Chinese) http://hk.news.yahoo.com/080517/60/2u63i.html
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In Duijangyan, Sichuan, a young mother tightly held her baby girl, who was about 3 to 4 months old, while using her own shoulders to stop the roof from falling onto her baby. The mother slowly lost her life, however the baby in her arms was still breastfeeding from her dead mother, until the baby was rescued. In Beichuan, another mother who also died using her body to protect her baby, left the last message to her baby: "my dearest baby, if you can live through this, you have to remember that I love you."
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In the afternoon of May 13th, the second day after the Sichuan earthquake, scores of rescue workers were digging through a residential area of Duijanyan, looking for survivors. A volunteer doctor said that under the rubbles, they found a young mother holding a 3-4 months old baby. The mother was curling her body, her head lowered, and she had no sign of life, however her shirt was lifted up, and the baby girl in her arms was still sucking on mother's nipples.
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Doctor wept as he recounted the scene, "At that moment, we saw a red (lively) little face, against the dead mother's gray breasts that were covered with dusts.it was such a contrast. Everyone at the scene cried.
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"I can't imagine, a dead mother was still breastfeeding her own child. From the way she was holding the baby, you can tell that she was protecting her child, or perhaps the mother put her nipple into the baby's mouth just before the mother died. We carefully took the baby out. The moment the baby was taken away from her mother's nipple, the baby cried."
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In Beichuan, rescue workers also found another dead mother protecting her
child: she was kneeling down, bowing her back; both arms on the ground supporting her body - her posture was like someone kowtowing, however her body was crushed so badly that it was deformed, and she was dead.
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Since it looked like she was protecting something underneath her, rescue workers carefully removed the rocks and stones around her. They found a baby who was around 3, 4 months old underneath her body. It was because the mother used her own body to block the falling wall, the baby was miraculously completely unharmed. When being taken out, the baby was even sleeping peacefully.
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A nurse removed the blanket from the baby to examine her, and found a cell phone tucked inside the blanket. Doctor looked at the screen of the cell phone, and saw a text message left by the baby's mother, "my dearest baby, if you can live through this, you have to remember that I love you."
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And in the midst of the devastation, a local policewoman gives orphaned babies a chance at life:
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The Face of Rescue: Women's Work
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CHENGDU, China - A Chinese policewoman is contributing to the country's massive earthquake relief effort in a very personal way -- by breastfeeding 20 babies.
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A newspaper in Chengdu, the capital of quake-hit Sichuan province, devoted a special page to the 29-year-old woman, calling her a hero.
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The woman from the quake-ravaged town of Jiangyou has just had a child herself, the Western Urban Daily said. She is nursing the children of three women who were left homeless by the quake and are too traumatised to give milk, as well as five orphans, the report said.

The babies who lost their parents have been put in an orphanage which does not have powdered milk, it said.
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Please look here and here to see why giving artificial infant formula in a disaster is extremely dangerous and puts the babies it is purporting to help at risk of serious disease and even death. Think twice too about which aid organizations you support. Dumping in a load of expired or nearly expired formula with no labels or instructions in the local language and then expecting mothers with no access to clean water or washing facilities to prepare bottles for the first time in their lives does not save babies' lives - it puts them in grave danger. Much more good could be done and many more babies saved through the provision of lactation support instead.