“I don’t want people to see this image and pity me; instead, I hope my actions will inspire other mothers to overcome all the difficulties and challenges on their breastfeeding journey.”

In recent days, a photo of a mother whose body was almost completely disfigured by a fire but who was still breastfeeding her child has been shared widely. The photo only has a few short lines of caption: “I was burned when my house burned down when I was 2 years old. And now I have given birth to a healthy baby boy on March 4th.

Luckily, despite the severe burns, my breasts were undamaged and I can still breastfeed my ‘little prince’,” but behind it lies a story of this mother’s incredible resilience.

When she was just 2 years old, the house where Schamica Stevenson lived was destroyed by a terrible fire, resulting in the death of her younger brother. The fire caused Schamica to undergo numerous skin surgeries, even requiring annual operations until she was 17 years old.

A few years later, Schamica became pregnant with her first child, but her daughter couldn’t breastfeed because she believed her damaged skin would prevent her from nursing.

[Image caption: Schamica during her pregnancy (right) and after giving birth to her second child (left).]

Sharing with Popsugar, she said: “The first time I was pregnant, at 20, my first fear was that my body wouldn’t be able to stretch to carry the baby. What would happen to the scars on my skin as my belly grew? Luckily, they were still elastic, just a little narrower on the sides, but because of the burns, I couldn’t get an epidural. And what bothered me most was that my child couldn’t breastfeed.”

Years later, Schamica became pregnant with her second child. Prior to that, she had spent three years trying to conceive again and experienced two miscarriages. After giving birth to her second son at the end of March, this mother bravely did something no one thought she could do: breastfeed her baby on her wrinkled skin.

“I decided to breastfeed even though the nurse said the baby pulling on my breasts could further damage my skin, but I still wanted to bond with him this way,” Schamica shared.

When she went to give birth, Schamica brought a breast pump, and immediately after her son was born, she worked hard to pump to get the milk flowing as quickly as possible and enough to feed him. “I consulted medical professionals about how to stimulate milk production, but they worried that the scar tissue on my skin might constrict the milk ducts, making it difficult for my body to produce milk. But I still followed my decision.” Currently, Schamica has plenty of milk, and her son is having no problems breastfeeding. Even better, she no longer feels guilty about giving birth and not being able to breastfeed.

This resilient mother first shared inspiring photos of herself breastfeeding on the Black Women Do Breastfeed page and immediately received a lot of attention from the community.

“I want to share my story to help mothers in similar situations not give up like I did when I was 20 and gave birth to my first child.

I don’t want people to see this picture and pity me; instead, I feel very proud and hope my actions will inspire other mothers to overcome all the difficulties and challenges on their breastfeeding journey,” the mother of two said.