A mother has sparked debate after posting a picture on social media showing her wet nursing a friend's son.
Jessica Anne Colletti, from Pennsylvania, shared the photo - which shows her feeding both her own 16-month-old son, and her friend's 18-month-old son - on a pro-breastfeeding page.
The picture of Mrs Colletti, 26, and the two boys, who she dubs 'milk siblings', has divided users on Facebook.
'Milk siblings': Mrs Colletti posted the photo to celebrate the conclusion of National Breastfeeding Week
'Happy World Breastfeeding Week!' Mrs Colletti wrote.
'I watch her son while she works and have been feeding them both for a year! So much love between these milk siblings, it's a special bond between us all.'
Mrs Colletti has been breastfeeding her friend's son since he was just five months, after he struggled with formula, and says her friend was very much 'on board' with the idea.
'She was breastfeeding but didn't have time to pump - I was already breasfeeding my son and it just made sense to nourish him in the same way,' Mrs Colletti told Daily Mail Australia.
'He was having issues with the formula his previous sitter had given him and his issues resolved when formula was no longer necessary.'
Mrs Colletti says her friend is 100 per cent happy with it.
'My friend and her son live with me and my husband. She knows everything about me and trusts me with the care of her child,' Mrs Colletti said.
'She knows I want nothing but the best four our boys, which is why she supports me breastfeeding our babies.'
The post, which has since been liked more than 500 times, received a mix of positive and less supportive responses from users.
'I wish that I could like this a million times!' One user wrote.
'Wet nurses saved many lives years ago,' another said.
Others were less impressed.
'I'm sure she [the friend] is definitely NOT okay with it,' one person wrote.
'Sorry but that's strange,' another commented.
Mrs Colletti says the criticism doesn't come as a surprise.
'I'm glad to get so much support from breastfeeding advocates and am not surprised by critics - a lot of people are misinformed about breastfeeding relationships,' Mrs Colletti said.
'The sexualisation of breasts and the belief that breast milk is gross because it is a bodily fluid has been ingrained in us through society, media and lack of breastfeeding in our daily life.'
Mrs Colletti has since considered removing the post altogether due to the negative feedback and other users hassling her.
'May have to delete this post because of the male friend requests I'm getting now,' Mrs Colletti wrote.
According to the World Health Organisation strategy on infant and child feeding, milk from a healthy wet nurse is the second best alternative to expressed milk from a child's mother when direct breastfeeding is not an option.
When asked whether she would continue feeding the kids as long as they wanted it, Mrs Colletti responded with a firm 'definitely'.
'It's healthy to nurse a toddler, it's healthy to extend breastfeeding until a child self weans, it's normal for healthy women to nurse each other's babies when the mother can not be present,' Mrs Colletti told Daily Mail Australia.
In 2009, actress Salma Hayek caused controversy when she nursed a newborn baby during a charity visit to Sierra Leone.
'The baby was perfectly healthy, but the mother didn't have milk,' she said afterwards. 'He was very hungry. I was weaning my daughter Valentina, but I still had a lot of milk that I was pumping, so I breastfed the baby.'
Culled from Daily Mail
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