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Tuesday, Feb 10, 2009 8:25 PM UTC

Salma Hayek breast-feeds an African baby

The actress encounters a starving infant in Sierra Leone and pops out a breast, on camera.

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Topics: Broadsheet, Health, Love and Sex,

While being filmed by a “Nightline” camera crew on a recent humanitarian mission in Sierra Leone, actress Salma Hayek came across the starving baby of a woman unable to breast-feed. What is an international sex symbol to do in such a situation? Why, pop out a breast on camera and nurse that baby, damn it. Top that, Angelina!

Of course, the footage has gone viral and parenting blogs are now asking mothers, “Would you do the same?” Hayek, who is still breast-feeding her 1-year-old daughter, explains her decision simply: “It’s about women sticking together and we really need to help the children in any way we can.” The trip was part of a Pampers’ “One Pack = One Vaccine,” which benefits UNICEF’s fight against maternal and neonatal tetanus — but, clearly, Hayek also managed to powerfully endorse the wonders of breast milk. “It is the best thing you can do for your child, not only the bonding, that’s how you build the immune system, so in a [place] like Africa imagine how important it is for the mothers to do that,” she said.

The video clip is so genuinely heartwarming, even the predictably sophomoric blog commentary (“I’d kill to be that baby!”) fails to diminish  it.

Tracy Clark-Flory

Tracy Clark-Flory is a staff writer at Salon. Follow @tracyclarkflory on Twitter and Facebook. More Tracy Clark-Flory.

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