A California woman whose son died 11 days after his birth turned her grief into positive action by donating more than her own body weight in breast milk to mothers whose babies needed it.
Ariel Matthews, of San Jose, lost her son, Ronan, in October. The infant, who was born with heart defects, also suffered a pair of strokes shortly after his birth that caused severe damage to his brain.
Matthews, 25, continued pumping her breast milk even after her son lost his struggle for life.
"I decided right away to donate it, because I knew he wasn't going to make it," Matthews told People.
It is not the first time that Matthews has donated breast milk to other mothers who, for one reason or another, could not feed their newborns with their own milk. She had a stillborn son in September 2015, and donated her milk then, as well.
Because that son, named Cayden, came early, her body didn’t produce much milk. She was only able to donate about 510 ounces, People reported.
Her goal this time was 1,000 ounces. When she hit that goal, she decided to keep going.
In the end, Matthews donated 2,370 ounces of breast milk after Ronan’s short life. That totals more than 18 gallons, or about 148 pounds, of milk.
The mom of a 3-year-old, Noah, said that it felt good to donate the milk, which went to two mothers whose bodies never produced milk for their newborns and a third who adopted a baby, People said.
"They would send me pictures of the babies right after drinking my milk, all passed out and full. So that was really cool," Matthews told People.
Matthews said Tuesday that her faith -- and Noah -- have helped her through the tragedy of the past couple of years, which also included a miscarriage around Christmas last year, just three months after losing Cayden.
Noah doesn’t yet understand fully why his baby brother didn’t get to come home, she said.
"Noah will say, 'Baby brother gone,' or, 'Baby brother Jesus,' because I've told him he's in heaven with Jesus," Matthews said.
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