Salma Hayek breastfeeds a stranger's baby in Africa

Africa has a strong effect on female celebrities. Madonna adopted a youngster after a visit to Malawi, while Angelina Jolie insisted on giving birth to a child in Namibia.

But Hollywood was agog this morning after From Dusk Till Dawn actress Salma Hayek breastfed a stranger's baby during visit to war-torn Sierra Leone.

The 42-year-old, who has a one-year-old daughter Valentina, was touring a hospital when she came across a mother who was unable to feed her baby boy.

Feeding time: Salma Hayek breastfeeds a stranger's baby after he starts to get hungry

Although TV cameras were there from ABC's Nightline news programme, the actress did not hesitate.

Hayek said: 'The baby was perfectly healthy, but the mother did not have any milk. He was very hungry - I was weaning my daughter Valentina, but I still had a lot of milk, so I breast-fed the baby.'

She added: 'It was amazing because he's really looking at me and he's very little. My baby is one year so she can suck a lot harder.'

Hayek later admitted she worried about betraying her daughter, but she added: 'I thought about it, am I being disloyal to my child by giving my milk away?

Helping hand: The actress cradles the child as she sits beside the baby's mother

Hunger: Hayek has a one-year-old baby daughter who she is weaning

'I actually think my baby would be very proud to be able to share her milk and when she grows up I will make sure she continues to share and be generous caring person.'

She went on to recall how her great-grandmother had helped out a woman in a similar fashion.

She explained: 'My great-grandmother was in a Mexican village and they found a woman in the street inconsolably crying and the baby was also crying, crying, crying.

'My great-grandmother went up to her and said "What is the matter?" and the mother said, "She is very, very hungry and I have no more milk".

'And in the street my great-grandmother took the baby and breastfed that baby who instantly stopped crying and went peacefully to sleep.

'It was amazing (to breastfeed another child) because I was really impressed by (my great-grandmother's) story. I'm here in Sierra Leone and I was able to feed a baby that was very hungry.'

In developing countries, doctors encourage women to breastfeed for up to two years, because the food available cannot match the nutrition from a mother's milk.

Since becoming a UNICEF spokesperson last year, Salma has travelled to many developing countries to raise awareness of the Pampers Tetanus programme.

Sierra Leone has the highest infant and child death rate in the world, with one in five children dying before they reach their fifth birthday.

Twenty one per cent of infant deaths in Sierra Leone are down to Tetanus, which can be prevented by a simple, routine injection which all children have in the western world.