A woman, from Neillsville, Wisconsin, gave birth to a baby boy who was born with trisomy 18 – a rare genetic condition where chances of survival for a newborn baby are less than 24 hours.
Sierra Strangfeld and her husband Lee welcomed their son Samuel Lee, who was born two months early in November.
Just three hours after being born, Samuel passed away.
The devastating mother then decided to donate breast milk to a NICU breast milk bank in order to help other mothers. Sierra wanted to save other babies’ life who were born prematurely.
Sierra spent 63 days pumping breast milk and donated breast milk to other babies.
Sierra said she found out about her baby’s condition when she was 20 weeks pregnant but she never thought of an abortion.
Sierra told TODAY Parents: “Termination was not an option for us – that was never a question.
We wanted to meet this precious gift, and we were going to do anything we could to meet him and treat him like any baby we would be blessed with.”
Samuel Lee was born two months before the due date, weighing one pound and seven ounces.
She added: “I was able to do skin-to-skin with him and his heart rate and oxygen levels immediately raised. It was like he knew he was with his mom. We got a few squeaks out of him and spent those three hours looking at every detail of his tiny body. Those hours felt like minutes.”
After her son passed away just three hours after being born, Sierra decided to donate her breast milk. She spent 63 days to pumping breast milk and donated more than 500 ounces to the Mother’s Milk Bank of the Western Great Lakes.
She said: “It was a good feeling, knowing I was going to help someone else in need, but it was also very emotional. I could feed a complete stranger’s baby, but I never got to feed my own.”
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