Mum's remarkable decision hours after losing newborn daughter
A mother dealing with the grief of losing her newborn daughter has made the remarkable decision to donate her breast milk for other babies.
Stephanie Surrey’s fourth child, Marion Ohana, died three days after she was born. Initially, her family considered donating her organs, but she was too small.
Instead, her family found another way to help other babies in need, by donating Stephanie’s breast milk to help hundreds of other babies.
“I have always felt like Marion – that her purpose here was to help others,” she told Fox affiliate WDAF.
The the Kansas mother, who has three other children, was able to donate hundreds of litres of breast milk.
“When I turned the pump in, this summer, cause I had dried up, I cried. I just cried and cried. It was like giving [my baby] up all over again,” she said.
Milk bank director Barbara Carr called the gesture “bittersweet”.
“We do know that it’s going to help another baby – but we know it’s a terribly sad time for a woman to be in that position,” she said.
St Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City has its own bank for donations of breast milk to provide milk for thousands of babies across the US, where five per cent of milk reportedly comes from women who have lost their babies.
