Patrisha Organo is a 24-year old flight attendant for Philippine Airlines, and she is being praised for breastfeeding a passenger’s hungry baby who would not stop crying.
She does not see herself as a hero and is grateful that she was able to help another mother who really needed it at the time.
Organo, who is a breastfeeding advocate, gave birth to her first child nine months ago. She shared her story via Facebook on November 7, and it quickly went viral. It was accompanied by a photo of the young woman holding the baby.
Organo wrote: “I heard an infant’s cry, a cry that will make you want to do anything to help. I approached the mother and asked if everything’s okay, I tried to tell her to feed her hungry child. Teary-eyed, she told me that she ran out of formula milk. Passengers started looking and staring at the tiny, fragile crying infant. I felt a pinch in my heart. There’s no formula milk onboard. I thought to myself, there’s only one thing I could offer and that’s my own milk. And so I offered.”
Sheryl Villaflor, the flight’s supervisor, played a crucial role in making sure that the whole situation was handled properly.
Villaflor took the mother in a different part of the plane so they could have some privacy as Organo was breastfeeding the stranger’s baby.
The flight attendant added: “The baby started rooting, she was so hungry. I saw the relief on her mother’s eyes. I continued to feed the baby until she fell asleep. I escorted her back to her seat and just before I left, the mother sincerely thanked me.”
Organo will probably never forget that flight for another reason; she also became a check flight evaluator. She explained: “I was right, the flight’s gonna be special, so special not only because I got qualified as an Evaluator but I got to help.”
Health experts say that it is risky to leave a stranger to breastfeed a child without discussing it with a professional before.
