An Argentinian police officer is being hailed as a hero after she was caught on camera breastfeeding a hungry crying baby at a hospital.
Officer Celeste Jaqueline Ayala was working her normal shift as a guard at the Sor Maria Ludovica children’s hospital in Buenos Aires when she heard the baby crying. When she went to find the source of the crying, she found that the wailing was coming from a baby boy who had been taken into custody by police.
Ayala noticed that hospital staffers had their hands full with other patients, so she asked if she could hold the baby. Though hospital employees said the baby was “dirty and smelly,” the officer insisted on helping the infant anyway.
“I noticed that he was hungry, as he was putting his hand into his mouth, so I asked to hug him and breastfeed him,” Ayala said. “It was a sad moment, it broke my soul seeing him like this.”
As Ayala held the baby, bystander Marcos Heredia snapped a photo of the powerful moment and posted it to social media, and it immediately went viral.
“I want to make public this great gesture of love that you had today with that baby,” Heredia wrote. “You did not care about the dirt and the smell as the professional gentlemen of the hospital said. Things like that are not seen every day.”
Ayala’s security department said that it has since promoted her after seeing the image. They explained that she was the kind of “police we’re proud of” and “the police we want.”
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
God bless this amazing officer! SHARE this story so your friends and family can see this as well!