Argentine Police Officer Promoted for Breastfeeding Malnourished Baby

An Argentine police officer got a promotion on Friday after a photo of her breastfeeding a malnourished infant at a Buenos Aires hospital went viral.

Hoy recibimos a Celeste, la oficial que amamantó a un bebé en el Hospital de Niños de #LaPlata para notificarle su ascenso. Queríamos agradecerle en persona ese gesto de amor espontáneo que logró calmar el llanto del bebé. La policía que nos enorgullece, la policía que queremos. pic.twitter.com/8aBp0Xj4Zj

— Cristian Ritondo (@cristianritondo) August 17, 2018

Cristian Ritondo, Buenos Aires’s provincial security minister, tweeted that Celeste Ayala would be promoted from officer to sergeant because of her act of kindness in feeding the malnourished infant.

“We wanted to thank you in person for that gesture of spontaneous love that managed to calm the baby’s cry. That’s the type of police we’re proud of, the police we want,” he said.

Celeste Ayala, a mother of three, had been stationed at the Sor Maria Ludovica children’s hospital last week when she noticed a crying, malnourished baby and asked to breastfeed him, the Guardian reported.

Ayala’s colleague, Marcos Heredia, witnessed the act and posted it on Facebook:

“I want to make public this great gesture of love that you made today with that baby, who you did not know, but for who you did not hesitate to act like a mother,” Heredia wrote on Facebook. “Things like that are not seen every day.”

Heredia’s post has since gone viral, racking up more than 112,000 shares and 160,000 reactions on the social networking site as of Wednesday afternoon.

Local media outlets reported that the baby Ayala breastfed was one of six siblings, all suffering from malnutrition.

“It was a sad moment, it broke my soul seeing him like this. Society should be sensitive to the issues affecting children; it cannot keep happening,” Ayala told local Argentinian news outlet Cronica.