Photo of local premature baby breast-feeding goes viral

After months of a difficult pregnancy that ended when her daughter was born nearly three months premature, Keri Putt was filled with emotion when she finally was able to breast-feed her baby for the first time.

She took a picture to capture the moment last month, and didn’t initially consider posting it on her Facebook page.

“I’m not an over-sharer, usually,” she said.

But that night she visited the Breastfeeding Mama Talk Facebook page where she had received a lot of support. She saw a similar picture that another mother posted, and so she wrote a comment of support and attached the picture she had taken.

She assumed no one would see it. She was wrong.

The picture had more than 600 likes overnight, and the page’s moderator contacted her the next day and asked if she could feature the photo in a post on the page. Putt agreed, still thinking it wouldn’t be seen much. Now it has been shared more than 1,100 times and has received more than 38,000 likes. The photo also was posted at Huffington Post and on Cosmopolitan’s website.

Putt’s pregnancy complications started early. Her water broke at 21 weeks and she spent the next seven weeks on bed rest, five of them in the hospital. She had an emergency cesarean section at 28 weeks after she had a placental abruption.

Her daughter, Dahlia, has been at Deaconess Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit ever since. As a surgical nurse at Deaconess, Putt is used to the wires and equipment that now surround her baby.

“I know what the important beeps are,” she said.

Putt had breast-fed her two sons and planned to do the same with her daughter. That’s why she was so emotional when Dahlia was able to breast-feed at 1 month old.

“I had heard lots of stories of people not being able to breast-feed their preemies,” she said.

Little Dahlia, born at 2 pounds, 5 ounces, is still beating the odds. She’s doubled her weight in the past six weeks and she shows no signs of permanent eye, ear or lung problems, Putt said. If she continues to gain weight and breathe well, she could go home soon.

Her husband, Derrick, stays at their home north of Deer Park with their 6-year-old son Deagan and 8-year-old son Draven while she stays at the Ronald McDonald House so she can visit the hospital every three hours to breast-feed.

While Putt is surprised that her photo went viral, she’s not upset.

“When I was going through what I was going through, I got a lot of help online,” she said. “I hope that it gives someone the same hope it gives me.”