In March 2013, Guangzhou received a yellow warning of heavy rain.
Xu Liang braved the heavy rain and came to the Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center. On the fifth floor, in one department, in two rooms, a head nurse, it was deserted. "It was my first visit and I heard that this is a place to donate breast milk, but no one has donated it yet."
Xu Liang told the medical staff, then I will donate.
That year was the second year xu liang became a mother, and later she successfully became the 001 donor of the first breast milk bank in mainland China, "the first person to donate breast milk in China." ”
On March 1, 2020, the Guangzhou Breastfeeding Promotion Regulations were officially implemented, and breastfeeding was the first to be legislated in Guangzhou.
At the beginning of this year, the Guangzhou public welfare organization "Breast Milk Love" volunteer team, made an annual summary, since its establishment in 2013, now the team of volunteers 1500 people, nationwide funding of 8 breast milk banks, the cumulative donation of more than 8 tons of breast milk, the rescue of seriously ill children more than 4000 people.
"Maybe one day, when we mothers are old, we can also say to our children that when our mothers were young, they did such a thing, which is particularly proud." 」 Xu Liang said.
"The first person to donate breast milk in China"
Ten years ago, 39-year-old Xu Liang became a new mother. As an elderly mother, she also experienced a miscarriage before. "It took a lot of hard work to conceive a child. Then I thought, I want to give him the best love. Because of postpartum anesthesia, Xu Liang has been in a comatose state, and she has not been able to wait for Xu Liang to wake up, and the hospital nurse fed Xu Liang's son milk powder. When the son was born into the world, the first sip of milk he ate was not his mother's, which became Xu Liang's long-term regret later.
Studies have shown that breast milk contains all the nutrients needed for the first 6 months of a baby. Choosing to breastfeed can prevent common childhood illnesses such as diarrhoea and pneumonia, and can also reduce a mother's risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes and postpartum depression.
As a media person, Xu Liang is well aware of the benefits of breast milk to children's health, and also wants to give the opportunity to use breast milk to more children in need. "Donating breast milk, such a good thing, why doesn't anyone do it?"
On this issue, Liu Xihong, director of the Clinical Nutrition Department of Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, is not optimistic. At the beginning of the preparation of the country's first breast milk bank, she did a survey of more than 300 mothers who had just given birth or were breastfeeding - there was more milk, and only 25.1% were willing to donate; less than 9% of their children were willing to accept milk donations from others after they fell ill.
Traditionally, breast milk is a bodily fluid, a health hazard, private and secret. Donating breast milk from lactating women has made many women of childbearing age question.
If no one donates breast milk, what is the point of the milk inventory? Xu Liang unexpectedly became the first person to break the deadlock.
After completing the physical examinations, the breast milk donation is completed. Xu Liang took the 140 ml of breast milk she donated and asked the staff to help take a photo. After returning home, Xu Liang sent a Weibo post as the host of Guangdong TV, calling on everyone to pay attention to breast milk donations.
Three days later, when she returned to the hospital, the door to the breast milk bank could not be pushed open - reporters at home and abroad, mothers in Hunan, Zhaoqing, Hong Kong and Heilongjiang, wrapped in the wider curiosity and attention of the Internet world, poured into the country's first breast milk bank in Guangzhou.
Xu Liang and her mother volunteers held a pop-up activity at the Canton Tower to call attention to breastfeeding.
Breast milk is lifesavers
"Dr. Liu Xihong told me that breast milk can also be used as a medicine to treat children with severe disease in NICU (NICU, Neonatal intensive care center, neonatal intensive care), and clinically can treat premature babies, very low weight children, severe malnutrition, sepsis, children with chemotherapy and milk protein allergies."
In short, breast milk is lifesaver. This made Xu Liang feel more clearly the value of breast milk donation.
Just a week after she completed her donation, in March 2013, the breast milk bank treated the first child, a 10-month-old child with intestinal fistula, Xiao Jiang (pseudonym). Xiao Jiang had intestinal surgery in his hometown, and the wound cracked after the operation, resulting in intestinal fistula. Within 2 months, his weight had dropped from 9 kg to 5.5 kg and he was severely malnourished. The family carried him to Guangzhou for medical treatment, just when the breast milk bank already had some milk, the doctor decided to feed Xiaojiang breast milk, starting from 10ml, to see if he tolerated it, and then increase the amount of milk.
Xu Liang decided to call on mothers to donate breast milk on the show and Weibo.
More and more people came to donate breast milk, ingesting sufficient breast milk, Xiaojiang gained three pounds and three pounds in two weeks, exceeding the growth rate of ordinary children nine times, and finally luckily turned the crisis into safety and was successfully discharged from the hospital. For a journalist, Xu Liang sensitively captured the value behind this matter.
"This incident led me to discover that breast milk is not only nutrition for children, but sometimes even means life." Compared with the value of breast milk, the breast milk donation of breast milk banks still faces a huge gap, and the public's perception of breastfeeding still faces great misunderstandings.
On May 20, 2013, on the National Breastfeeding Publicity Day - "Great Love with Sound • Breast Milk Love" public welfare project was officially launched - this is the first public welfare project in China to promote breastfeeding, breast milk donation to treat children with severe diseases and promote the establishment of mother and baby rooms in public places, with the Breast Milk Love Public Welfare Fund and the Breast Milk Love Volunteer Service Team, with Xu Liang as the leader of the Breast Milk Love Volunteer Service Team.
The Breast Milk Love Volunteer Service Team launched a "We Are All Mammals" pop-up campaign at the zoo in Guangzhou, calling for attention to breastfeeding.
From daughter to mother
When she was a child, Xu Liang once thought that if she grew up, she would become a person like her parents.
The girl who grew up in the Beijing compound was the little daughter of the family, running in the field, climbing trees to pick fruit, throwing cannonballs, and rolling iron rings. In her free and unbridled childhood, the actions of her parents gave her a great influence.
"My dad really was, and he was known for being enthusiastic." Xu Liang's impression was that her father would always take some strangers home. Selling fruit and furniture, hearing that others are in difficulty, his father will take the other party back, and if he can help, he can help a little, and a meal can also be done. Once, my father met a carpenter from Zhejiang on the road, who wanted to work in Beijing, and came with a burden, and ate a meal without eating.
"Later, my father took the family home, and his wife was sitting in my house. When the child was born, the nurses thought his wife was my daughter-in-law. Even if Xu Liang left home to work later, she would still receive strange phone calls," I asked her who she was, and she said she was my sister. Because my husband travels for many years on business, and he can't take care of his children alone, my parents will treat other people's children as granddaughters, eat and drink together, just like a family. ”
"At that moment, it felt like I was a rich second generation, a spiritually rich second generation."
Later, the youngest daughter of the family, the first to carry a bag, left home and came to Guangzhou. "At that time, watching Chen Xiaoyi's "Foreign Sister" and entering the TV station to work." Learn lighting, learn videography, learn five strokes of typing, go out in the morning and go out for morning exercises, hang clothes on the top of your head, and your socks can't dry for a week. "Young people don't want to go with the flow, so choose mudslides. Rush, go, go out and make your own way. Now that I think about it, it was really a period of burning passion. She appeared at the scene of the Wenchuan earthquake, the scene of the ice and snow disaster in the south, and after becoming a mother, she was determined to donate breast milk. She wanted to do something with her own strength.
Before the National Day in 2014, Xu Liang received a Weibo request for help, a post-80s mother-to-be who lived in Baiyun District, Guangzhou, suddenly fell seriously ill in the third trimester of pregnancy, and gave birth to the child's small letter paper (pseudonym) by emergency caesarean section, but she did not expect that the new mother died on the thirtieth birthday, leaving a ten-day-old child, and the mother had a wish to breastfeed her child before she died.
"We hope that this child's maternal love will not be left blank, and this mother's last wish will be fulfilled." She consulted with her own public welfare team and sent 7 mothers from Guangzhou to donate breast milk to their children.
After the full moon, the small letter paper will move to Zhuhai and live with grandparents. Can breastfeeding be broken? Xu Liang ran around and found a cold-chain "love express" willing to help transport breast milk. The courier truck departed from Zengcheng, Guangzhou early in the morning, went door to door to get breast milk, and then sent it to Zhuhai non-stop, and then sent 10,000 milliliters of nearly 50 kilograms of breast milk to the small letter paper home on the eighth floor. Several mothers, two courier brothers, completed a year of breast milk express delivery, sent 96,295 ml of breast milk and 200 pounds of breast milk to the small stationery. A group of people fulfilled a mother's last wish.
"My biggest feeling is that my mother is the most loving group. When a girl grows from a little girl to a mother, she will become stronger than ever, and it is human instinct to be a mother. ”
A performance art performance by Xu Liang and a thousand women ends with a mother holding a baby.
From mother-and-baby rooms to breastfeeding legislation
"It's been almost 30 years since I came to Guangzhou, and sometimes it's scary to think about, and the long years have come like this."
Xu Liang sometimes thinks that if there is a parallel time and space, she hopes that she is still the age of her childhood, her parents are not old, and her son can be around. Everything is young. Over the years, the efforts to breastfeed and call for breastfeeding have accumulated solidly.
In the second half of 2016, the Breast Milk Love Public Welfare Organization led by Xu Liang cooperated with the Guangzhou Women's Federation to carry out the construction of mother and baby rooms in public places throughout the city, and as a third-party institution of public mother and baby rooms, it undertook the construction, evaluation, supervision and management of mother and baby rooms.
In 2017, the construction of the mother and baby room became one of the "Top Ten People's Livelihood Projects in Guangzhou" and was written into the work report of the Guangzhou Municipal Government for the first time.
On March 1, 2020, with the efforts of the breast milk love team, China's first breastfeeding regulation" "Guangzhou Breastfeeding Promotion Regulations" was implemented.
At the beginning of this year, the breast milk love team made an annual summary, and now there are 1500 volunteers in the team, 8 breast milk banks have been funded nationwide, more than 8 tons of breast milk have been donated, and more than 4,000 children with serious diseases have been rescued. Among them, Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Maternal and Child Health Hospital, and Xiamen Hong'ai Hospital have received a total of nearly 7.8 tons of donated breast milk, and 3130 children with severe disease have been treated through breast milk donation.
She has been wearing short hair and light makeup all year round, and she talks quickly about work. Once we talk about our children and breastfeed, the tone suddenly softens. "The appearance of my son and the identity of my mother have made me have a strong sense of mission." She wants her son to be a better person, and she should be a better version of herself.
"Maybe one day, when we mothers are old, we can also say to our children that when our mothers were young, they did such a thing, which is particularly proud." 」
N video x south all smell
Co-produced
Nandu reporter Dong Xiaoyan Zhang Jing intern Guo Yixuan
Photography Nandu reporter Zhong Ruijun
Video Nandu reporter Zhang Jing Zhong Ruijun
Chen Donghui Chen Jiehao Chen Changqing
(Some photos provided by respondents)