Rosie Dempsey was born tongue-tied.
The thin piece of skin connecting the bottom of her tongue to the floor of her mouth was too short, making it difficult for her to nurse last year.
She was also lip-tied. Another piece of skin pinned the underside of her upper lip close to her gum, preventing her tiny lips from tightly sealing around her mom Aimée’s nipple when she was trying to feed. And because Rosie couldn’t empty her mother’s breasts of milk, Aimée Dempsey’s milk supply dwindled.
Some breast-feeding moms may have given up, switching their babies to formula.
But not Dempsey. She and her husband tried for six years to have a child before Rosie was born. And she wanted Rosie to have all the benefits of breast milk — from cutting the risk of Type 2 diabetes to protecting against asthma.
Dempsey went online looking for advice from other breast-feeding moms and discovered there were other nursing moms who donate their extra breast milk to help babies who, for whatever reason, need milk their own mothers cannot provide.
That’s how Dempsey, who lives near Youngstown, met Deidrinelle Moton of Akron.
On Saturday, the two moms sat on a blanket at Heintz-Hillcrest Park with their toddlers, Rosie and Ryan Moton, who were born two months apart. Moton pumped her extra breast milk and froze it so Dempsey could feed it to Rosie, who is now 15½ months old.
The women came to the park to support the Global Big Latch On, a worldwide event to protect, promote and support breast-feeding families. Last year, 15,336 women breast-fed 14,889 infants and toddlers during the worldwide event that has its roots in New Zealand.
Survive and thrive
Summit County Public Health, which has been encouraging all moms to breast-feed, sponsored the event in Akron, which has the highest infant mortality rate in Ohio. Breast-feeding, public health officials believe, can help more children survive and thrive here.
At 10:30 a.m., a time coinciding with hundreds of other latch events, 15 infants, babies and toddlers began nursing at the Akron park.
Gloria Fragasse of Akron and her son, 19-month-old Patrick, were among them. When Fragasse started breast-feeding Patrick, she covered her exposed breast and her newborn son with a blanket when they were in public, she said Saturday.
But Patrick didn’t like the blanket over his head and often pulled it off. As time passed, Fragasse said she gave up on modesty.
“I just saw no reason to cover up. Breast-feeding is a natural thing,” she said.
Her husband, Mike, who was at the park in solidarity Saturday, remembers getting some dirty looks when his wife was feeding Patrick inside their car parked outside a Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Indiana.
But Gloria Fragasse said she never noticed. She tunes out the world around her while she’s breast-feeding and encourages other moms to do the same.
“This is natural,” she said. “This is what we should do.”
Removing stigma
Audrey Blasdel, a breast-feeding peer helper with Women Infants and Children (WIC) nutritional program, helped organize the Akron event and said removing any breast-feeding stigma is important.
U.S. health officials recommend mothers breast-feed babies until they are 12 months old, but the World Health Organization doubles the recommended age to 2 years old, she said.
WIC, Blasdel said, tries to get all moms to breast-feed. If the moms can’t, the program helps them look for donors — just like Dempsey did when she found Moton.
The milk exchange was awkward at first, Dempsey and Moton said. They were both new, first-time moms and a few friends and family members objected to giving or accepting breast milk from a stranger.
But the women were determined. Rosie was 4 months and Ryan was 6 months when they began. A polite arrangement grew into play dates for their children and then a friendship for the moms.
Moton had planned to stop breast-feeding when Ryan turned 1. But that would have left Dempsey and Rosie in need. So Moton pumped for an extra two months so Rosie would have breast milk until she was 1, too.
“I was just so blown away, so moved by Deidrinelle’s generosity,” Dempsey said Saturday as Rosie and Ryan played nearby.
“We’re family now,” said Moton, who is due with her and her husband’s second child in December. “That’s what families do.”
Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.