AN AMERICAN mother who was photographed while breastfeeding her baby at a rally for Democratic presidential nominee Bernie Sanders says she received hate mail and death threats after her image went viral.

Margaret Ellen Bradford, from Ohio, had no idea she was being photographed at the rally in Cleveland last week. Her daughter Harper was hungry, so she started to breastfeed her.

“A hungry baby is a hungry baby,” Bradford told ABC News Cleveland. “There is no, ‘I’m feeding you in 10 minutes.’ It’s, ‘I’m feeding you right here, right now, or you’re screaming’.”

The image, taken by Reuters photographer Alan Chin, was shared widely on news sites and on social media. It even caught the attention of Sanders himself, who tweeted his support of Ms Bradford.

As a society, we should never stigmatize women for breastfeeding in public. https://t.co/I08wzGrdWH — Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 3, 2016

“After the rally, Bernie and Jane O’Meara Sanders both thanked me for doing what mothers do and taking care of my daughter when she needed her mum, even if that meant nursing in public!” Ms Bradford wrote in a Facebook post, which has since received almost 7000 likes and has been shared 1900 times.

“I’ve gotten a lot of hate mail and a lot more love mail,” she added.

In a follow-up post, Ms Bradford enoucraged new mothers to share photos of themselves breastfeeding with the hashtag #boobsforBernie.

Hundreds of mothers commented on the post offering their support and shared selfies of themselves breastfeeding their babies.

Ms Bradford says she is overwhelmed by this show of solidarity.

“I can’t tell you all how much this support means,” she commented on her post.

“I’ve been trying to stay positive but honestly I’ve cried three times already from some of the hateful messages I’ve received, telling me my daughter should be taken or that I’m just an uneducated low-life hick.

“I was starting to lose it and considering taking the picture down. To know I have so much support keeps me going.”

What makes this photo even more special is the context. Harper is Bradford’s second child. Her three-year-old son Gavin was born with a hole in his heart and had to be fed through a tube, so his mother was never able to breastfeed before.

“So this being her last baby, she was determined to do the breastfeeding and do it well,” her grandma Lee Bradford told ABC News Cleveland.

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