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Home / Lifestyle

Woman breastfeeds stranger's baby at party 'to see what it felt like'

NZ Herald
1 Apr, 2017 04:30 AM3 mins to read

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"Would it be so bad, I wondered, if I just tried it out - just for a minute - just to see what it felt like?" Photo / Getty

"Would it be so bad, I wondered, if I just tried it out - just for a minute - just to see what it felt like?" Photo / Getty

What you are about to read may sound like it's been made up. It hasn't. And while the original article has been removed from the website it was originally posted to, it will live on forever in the black hole that is the internet.

Excerpts were also run in Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail, with many readers questioning if the anecdote was actually real, or a script from a horror movie.

After reading the Leah McLaren story pic.twitter.com/UdHaVecYQe

— Richard Lee-Sam (@RLeesam) March 27, 2017

First appearing as a column titled The joy (and politics) of breast-feeding someone else's baby, the article left readers bamboozled, trying to figure out what they had just read, reports the Washington Post.

The confession - or perhaps boasting - of columnist Leah McLaren, is a story that is as bizarre as it is confusing ...

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Several years ago McLaren was at a house party in Toronto, single and feeling "broody in the way that young women in their late 20's often are," she wrote.

Finding the party a bit dull for her liking, McLaren writes that she took off up stairs in search of a bathroom.

"I walked into a bedroom with coats piled high on the bed," McLaren wrote, "and noticed that in the corner, sitting wide-awake in a little portable car seat, was the cutest baby I'd ever seen."

"I smiled at the baby and the baby smiled back, I leaned over and gingerly picked him up."

This is where things start to get weird.

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"Somehow, my pinkie finger ended up in house mouth and I was astonished at the strength of his sucking reflex. 'C'mon lady,' said his eyes."

"Would it be so bad, I wondered, if I just tried it out - just for a minute - just to see what it felt like?" McLaren continued.

The story ends with the baby's father walking in to the room to see McLaren with her blouse open, holding the baby to her breast.

The father, Michael Chong, is now a well-known Canadian politician and member of the conservative party, then retrieved the baby from McLarens arms, preventing whatever happens next when a non-lactating woman attempts to breast-feed a child.

The incident, which happened over 10 years ago, has appeared to have little impact on Chong, who shared his thoughts about the global outrage on his twitter:

Incident happened over 10 years ago. It was no doubt odd, but of no real consequence. Let's focus on the important challenges facing Canada

— Michael Chong 🇨🇦 (@MichaelChongMP) March 27, 2017

The internet continues to go wild about the incident, and McLaren continues not to understand the problem.

"It doesn't actually feel odd at all," she wrote.

• Read McLaren's column in full here:

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