Jewish nurse breastfeeds baby of injured Palestinian mother during hospital shift

The family of an injured nine-month-old asked Ula Ostrowski-Zak to help them find someone to nurse the boy, but the nurse volunteered to do it herself.

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JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Palestinian baby seriously injured in a car accident was breastfed by a Jewish nurse when he refused to take a bottle.

Nurse Ula Ostrowski-Zak nursed the nine-month-old boy throughout her shift at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital on Friday night, the Ynet news website reported.

The baby’s family had been in a head-on collision with a bus on Route 60 in the West Bank, killing the baby’s father and leaving his mother with a serious head injury. The baby was slightly injured and cried for seven hours in the emergency room while continuing to refuse a bottle, according to the report.

The baby’s aunts asked Ostrowski-Zak to help them find someone to nurse the boy and the nurse reportedly volunteered to do it herself. She nursed the baby five times during the next day. She then posted a request for help with nursing the baby on an Israeli Facebook page for nursing mothers and received many responses from women willing to come to the hospital, from as far away as Haifa, to help feed the baby until he is discharged.

The baby’s mother remains in serious condition.

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