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[Please be advised that quotes from this page can only be used if the entry is quoted in its entirety and the quote includes a link to this page.]
(April 13, 2007)
My sister and I are staying in the Ronald McDonald House in Houston because one of her 17 month old twins had to have brain surgery to remove a tumor last week. The RMH has been great and we have felt so blessed to find such a safe and homey place to take care of her other two children and my daughter while we are here for Tobin's recovery.
However yesterday my sister, who is nursing the twins, was asked to stop nursing in the communal area of the Ronald McDonald House and to take it up to her room. She was shocked! After his surgery her son will basically only drink breastmilk and it is the only thing that eases the constant pain and anxiety he feels. She told them that it was illegal, according the Texas state law, to ask a breastfeeding mother to stop nursing in any public or private place. She also tried to explain to them how inconvenient it would be for her to take all her children up 3 floors to their room every time her sick child needs to nurse.
Unfortunately after 30 minutes of arguing, and being threatened with being kicked out, she was in tears and they weren't backing down. So I headed down there to talk to the administrator because I am also nursing my three year old daughter. I even pulled up the state law on my laptop and after a lengthy discussion the administrator acted as if she was going to examine the law so she understood it and move on. I thought that was the end of it.
Today I find out they may be kicking us out of the RMH because we refused to comply with what they call their "interpretation of the law". Their interpretation is that if they provide somewhere else for us to nurse they don't have to let us nurse in public places. Since when do laws get to be personally tailored to an organizations needs?
This is a ridiculous and terrible situation for all of us, I am not sure what else we will do if we can't stay here but we can't just not nurse our children. The Ronald McDonald is such a great resource, why do they have to discriminate against nursing moms?
If you would like to send a letter(s) we would appreciate it. Arlene Whatley is the Director of Operations of the Holcombe location of the RMH where we are staying and one of the people who Jessica spoke to about this. It is Arlene that seems to be making the decision here. Her email is awhatley@rmhhouston.org and her phone is (713) 795-3570.
Also her higher ups, The Executive Director can be emailed at nscott@rmhhouston.org and the Director of Administration is srichard@rmhhouston.org.
This message may also be shared and reposted as you see fit. Thank you all for your support.
**Update**..please read Update posts (below) for a more info but as of Saturday Afternoon (4/14) we are still being asked not to nurse anywhere but our rooms and Arlene, who I spoke to today by phone, has informed me that she will be contacting the Executive Director and their attorneys on Monday about the situation before any other decisions will be made. I have been told by Arlene that she will do what she needs to do and that I am to "be very careful" about what I decide to do. We are being told that we are not being asked to leave right now and that they never meant that we should have to...despite the fact that Arlene told my sister in front of another RMH employee on speaker phone that families who could not acclimate to the environment at RMH should find somewhere else to stay. She admitted this to me on the phone today, that yes she did tell Jessica that...but that did not mean we actually had to leave. Also the day after she was asked to stop nursing(yesterday) Jessica's social worker was contacted by RMH and was apparently told that she may need to help us make other accommodations. The RMH actually contacted my sister's social worker who handles Tobin's case while he is in the hospital and got her involved...because Jessica was nursing and they are not ok with that? I guess nursing means not acclimating to their environment and she was just trying to intimidate Jessica into stopping the nursing of her sick son.
I do want to say that aside from Arlene, and the original employee who asked my sister to stop nursing, we have been treated very well here and want to say that the RMH has great employees as well as the ones bullying us.
FIRST UPDATE
Thank you all for your support. I was starting to feel pretty alienated around here, like we are some sort of weird breed for breastfeeding. My question is how many other moms have they done this to? No wonder I have never seen anyone else nursing. Like one of you said, if nursing is important for a healthy child think how important it is for a sick or healing child! This is supposed to be a family centered place.
Anyone who wants to share my original post is welcome to, we may need the support in the coming days.
Apparently RMH decided to call my sister's social worker (the one they assigned to her family as standard practice at MD Anderson where her son is) and tell the worker that they may be asking us to leave. Apparently so she could help us make other arrangements, but they refuse to speak to us about it anymore. They told the worker that no final decision has been made yet and that Vicki(who I believe is the operations coordinator, a woman I have not spoken to) will be contacting her soon about the "situation". This is just so heartbreaking and it really is the last thing my sister needs right now.
I will of course contact a lawyer, the media and the LLL if they do attempt to remove us. I have no intention of watching my sister suffer for breastfeeding her child nor do I have any intention of hiding when I nurse either. I was hoping that we would not need to contact anyone because the RMH is such a great service otherwise, but at this point if this Vicki doesn't put an end to this I will need all the nursing mom support I can get.
That is as much as I know right now, we are crossing our fingers and I will let you all know when there is new info. Also I will see if I can find Vicki's email addy for letters. Thanks!!!
SECOND UPDATE
Your emails would be appreciated....
Wow you guys are amazing. You are giving me the courage and strength to keep pursuing this and I can't thank you enough. My sister, who is back in the hospital with Tobin, was so thankful for all the support she didn't even know what to say. She feels frightened and intimidated and the help from all of you has made her feel so supported! Thank you! Thank You!
As far as the current situation-- apparently the woman making the desision on this is the administrator Arlene. It seems Vicki is only her liaison between the RMH and the hospital social workers. Arlene told the social worker that she is looking into whether or not they can designate an area of their choice and force Jessica, and all nursing moms, to nurse there. This is despite Texas state law which clearly states that this would mean an illegal action on their part. We have spoken to everybody working here with mixed responses, nobody seems to have any power but Arlene. However one woman told us that the only appropriate response would be a fullscale policy change because RMH has no rules protecting breastfeeding moms.
Anyway I tried calling RMH headquarters and just got an answering machine, I will call back tomorrow. I also wrote an email to all the directors and administrators from the Houston chapter with the Texas health code included.
The fact that no apology or attempt to remedy this situation has been made is wearing on me. This has been going on for a day and a half now, with us waiting and wondering. I can only imagine how many other moms they have backed into corners in the past, in not just this RMH, but all over the country. I would like to see that fullscale policy change, and I think your letters are necessary. RMH needs to have protections and encouragement for breastfeeding moms built in across the country. After seeing the way my sister feels, when she is already so stressed and afraid, I don't ever want to see this happen to another mom again.
Nobody seems to want to give me an email contact for Arlene. But the RMH Houston website has contacts for the Houston Executive Director nscott@rmhhouston.org, the Director of Administration srichard@rmhhouston.org, and more specifically the Director of Operations for the Holcombe House (the specific RMH we are at) awhatley@rmhhouston.org. This last one may be Arlene but like I said I can't find anyone who will verify.
Any emails would be appreciated! Thank you so much. If you want to be specific my sister's name is Jessica Swimeley, my name Melanie Mayo-Laakso.
I will be making more calls, perhaps to the media and certainly to some big dogs tom about this. We will see what they have to say...I will keep you all updated.
UPDATE - APRIL 16th - AFTERNOON
I am still updating the original thread but someone suggested I also post a new one so that it will be easier to find the new information.
I just spoke to Naomi Scott, the Executive Director of the RMH Houston, and we (Me, Jessica, Arlene and Naomi) have a meeting this afternoon (tentatively) at 4pm. She came back from her vacation early to handle the situation. Naomi needs to speak to some people before the meeting she said.
Unlike Arlene, Naomi was very pleasant on the phone but she told me that although they are not kicking us out right now that it is a guideline(an oral one) to ask all breastfeeding mothers to go to their rooms to nurse. This is the first I have heard of any oral guideline from anyone. It was never mentioned before. She told me this was because they had multicultural residents here and that they need to protects all the residents from feeling uncomfortable. Because of this they are not changing their stance on us breastfeeding downstairs.
She also said that she has received calls from corporate but that each RMH is run independently. They have also received calls from national donors and she said that was uncomfortable and that all of our emails crashed their server (although they have fixed it now) which was costing them money.
This is all I know for now but I will be contacting the LLL about representation of some sort at the meeting and I am going to try and get ahold of corporate myself right now. Thank you all for your continued support..and please keep the pressure coming, we will need it now MORE THAN EVER to make sure all moms have the right to breastfeed at the RMH.
Please call or email Naomi Scott at 713.795.3560 or nscott@rmhhouston.org and call or fax corporate if you feel you can as well.
Corporate RMH
Phone: 630-623-7048
Fax: 630-623-7488
Please let them know that their apparent "oral guideline"" as Naomi put it, of directing employees and volunteers to ask mothers to nurse only in their rooms is not acceptable and that we should be able to nurse anywhere we are allowed to be at RMH. Especially since bottle-feeding is perfectly acceptable in these same communal areas(there was a woman in the common area feeding a bottle last night).
UPDATE - APRIL 16th - EVENING
The outcome of the Ronald McDonald House breastfeeding meeting.
Ok here is the outcome of the meeting. We got out about an hour ago and I have been trying to find time to post here after returning some phone calls.
The meeting was about 2 hours long and included myself and my sister, a representative from the LLL, and a doctor from the area who is responsible for some big research on breastfeeding. I will not mention their names as I have not asked them for permission to do that but we thank them both for their support! We could not have handled the meeting without them. I contacted the suggested LLL person in Texas(again no names) and she sent them right out. She was great as well and worked tirelessly for us today.
From the RMH Arlene, the Director of Operations, as well as Naomi, the Executive Director, attended as well as a couple of their board members.
After a very lengthy conversion with many twists and turns the RMH is allowing us to stay. We are from now on allowed to breastfeeding in the communal areas if we follow some rules they have set forth and not too many people complain about it. They said if just one person complains they will tell them they support breastfeeding and discuss with them why they are concerned. If many people were to complain they will have to deal with that as it comes up, they could not say how as they have not encountered the situation.
The rules we are to follow are that we are to be discreet, this is at our discretion, meaning we choose what discreet means but they said they will obviously know if we are not being discreet if people are complaining that they are uncomfortable with us nursing.
We are also being asked to inform the people around us before we begin nursing if we think there is anybody that may be uncomfortable with it. We are to tell them nicely that we are going to breastfeed, in case they want to leave or look away.
There was alot of discussion about what discreet meant, but after some pretty silly possibilities for discretion they decided it would be up to us as to what that meant. They said they would not bother us about nursing again unless many people complained, which nobody felt was likely to happen.
The RMH wanted us to tell everybody that the RMH supports breastfeeding moms...they were VERY adamant about it. You can decide for yourself if that is true, I am only passing on what they said to us.
Now, at this point, this only applies to us. When asked how other nursing moms would be treated they said they cannot make any changes right in the room but that they will be examining the practice, or oral guidelines, of asking breastfeeding moms to stop. They said they did not have the power to make policy change, it had to go to the board; which they said they would seriously discuss doing.
Obviously alot more was said in 2 hours but this is the gist of the situation. If they really do examine their guideline this could be a really good thing but we will have to follow up to make sure that happened. Please if you decide to write anymore letters (and they received ALOT of letters) please do so to encourage them to reexamine thier guidelines and to thank them for considering it. Although they were not apologetic to us they have agreed to reexamine their stance and this could be really good for alot of nursing moms. If we handle this correctly this could mean national change for the RMH.
We will be waiting to find out how this plays out in the following days and will will update as needed. Lots of media have contacted us from all kinds of large outlets and I am still not sure who, if anyone, I will talk to at this point. We are trying to decide how to best help ALL moms.
We want this to benefit moms across the board so me and Jessica will be working to change their guidelines as we go. And the LLL says they will continue to offer us support. We are not giving up on a full scale policy protecting moms, but we will have to wait for a board decision on that. This will take time but I am confident that we can make this happen.
THANK YOU ALL FOR OUR SUPPORT!!!!! Above all if you all had not done what you have done I suspect we would not have had the outcome we did or even had that meeting.
Your advice and input is welcome here as to how we should proceed and we will be checking in.
UPDATE - APRIL 17TH
What to do now....
At this point the issue at RMH as not been resolved in the long run, nor for all nursing mothers. Although we will not be asked to leave the fight cannot stop here. All of us(the people on this board and elsewhere, the LLL, and many more) worked to get the RMH to even consider examining this oral guideline of asking breastfeeding mothers to stop. Now we need to make sure the board follows up on it. Because as of right now OUR rights are still limited in terms of breastfeeding and OTHER MOTHERS may not be protected at all according to the information at our meeting. They are "bending a guideline for us" that is all at this point.
The big focus is that they are potentially going to look into the guideline. We NEED them to do that. This means letters should be redirected to the board of directors and corporate. Of course Arlene Whatley and Naomi Scott will no doubt be integral in any decision made, at least at this house.
Please keep telling them you want this to happen. You want corporate to create an RMH national policy protecting breastfeeding mothers so this can never happen again!
Thank you all..you are sooooooooo powerful! I hope you know that.
UPDATE - APRIL 18TH
For the ease of all, the new place with our updates in the RMH breastfeeding issue
Because it is getting hard for me to keep up on all the postings and to make sure that everyone is getting updated properly, and because many of you are feeling a bit lost in all the postings, we have decided to post new updates to the Birth Without Boundaries website. This is thanks to an invitation from Jake Marcus to use the site for this purpose. I hope posting this link here is ok. http://www.birthwithoutboundaries.com. The updates will start appearing here as soon as tomorrow.
I will still update the condensed thread that was started just for information here as well and I will still be very active on the boards and hope the discussion will go on. I will try to keep answering personal messages and talking about this in the postings here, but out of respect for all of you I think this will make it alot easier for everyone to stay up to date as this progresses. Nobody should have to search through 20 pages of postings to find a bit of information .
Because we know the bending of the "guideline" for our family is only a very temporary solution, and only for us, we are moving forward with trying to get RMH to make a policy that protects all breastfeeding mothers. We will be speaking to some media and others in the coming days. If anything this situation has gotten even more serious for us, and we are hoping good things for breastfeeding will come of it.
In the meantime we would appreciate if you would direct your emails to us concerning the issue to Jake Marcus who, along with many others, has been integral in this situation. She will be helping us manage them for now and can be contacted at j.a.marcus@comcast.net.
Of course I am still open for contact, but I may not be able to respond as efficiently to your messages as Jake.
I also want to take this time to thank Tracy Malone from the LLL, who has given me permission to say that I spoke with her, as she was a HUGE player in our getting the wonderful advocates we did at that meeting. So thank all of you who suggested I contact her and who sent me her contact info.
Also Marcia Lutostanski, of the LLL Board of Directors that advocated for us at the meeting, she was brilliant.
Please look around here and visit Birth Without Boundaries for updates and calls to action as soon as we get them.
Thank you all again for your wonderful support!
UPDATE - APRIL 22ND
Hello everyone, Jessica here. I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone out there for your kindness, support, and concern regarding Tobin as well as the incident that occurred at the RMH. Tobin is doing well, he seems to be improving daily and getting some of his spunk back. Hopefully by the end of next week we will find ourselves at home. What a relief it will be to be home at last. I am unsure what the future will hold as far as Tobin's tumor, but we are all just so thankful that his surgery is over and his recovery is now going well.
I thought a lot about whether I should reiterate what happened, just so it could come straight from me, but after thinking about it I don't think it is necessary at this point. The story has been told by my sister just as I would have told it if I had had the chance, and I am thankful for that. I did, however want to make a few comments, as I have not had the opportunity to up until now. First off, I wanted to say that I feel incredibly grateful to have somewhere like the RMH to stay in such a trying time, aside from the incident, it has been nothing but a blessing to my family and me. This is actually part of the reason I felt like it is so important that people were aware of the situation, as every mother and family should feel nothing but comfort in difficult times, and so hopefully situations like these do not have to happen in the future. I know that some may have felt conflicted because the RMH does such amazing work and no one, including myself, wants to negatively impact families of sick children. However, if anything, this issue is even more important in an environment like this, where mothers and babies can be so vulnerable.
Speaking from experience, breastfeeding a sick child means so much more than even providing the best nourishment. It is such a simple act, what I did, putting my baby to my breast. It was naturally what I knew he needed, and it is so important that every breastfeeding couple have the freedom to this wherever the need occurs, free from limitations imposed by others. I know I am likely preaching to the choir and saying nothing that hasn't already been said before, but I need to say it.
Mammas, nurse your babies! Do it wherever and whenever and however you feel comfortable. Don't hide because of the lack of understanding around you, don't feel discouraged by misconceptions. I know that change will happen, if painfully slow. I hope that, in time, women will not think twice about nursing in public and those around her won't think twice about its appropriateness.
Being asked to stop nursing a sick child, and to only do so in my private room, and then having that reiterated by to us by RMH over a four day span before the meeting, was exceptionally stressful and painful. Additionally, the meeting did not make clear our rights to breastfeed as absolutely as we would have liked and did not clear the path for mothers in the future. For this reason, although we feel the outcome of the meeting was a step in the right direction, the issue needs to continue being addressed. The RMH has proposed that they will consider examining their practice of asking mothers to nurse in the privacy of their rooms, and we want them to stay on that track.
On that note, what we would like to see from this is an eventual official policy protecting all breastfeeding mothers and babies in Ronald McDonald House's on a national level. So any efforts on your part would be much appreciated and can be directed to the RMD Houston board of directors and the RMH corporate board of directors. I hope that our experiences here can be part of larger movement for change. Once again, thank you to everyone who has been so wonderfully supportive and kind during all of this, it means so very much.
AN UPDATE - AUGUST 12TH
Thanks for the support....
In terms of an update on Tobin, he is doing really well (knock on wood). He had a follow up MRI recently and it found no new tumor growth. He will have regular scans to make sure the tumor is not growing back and all we can do is hope they will be clear. As for now he is not undergoing chemo, and we hope it will stay that way as long as the tumor does not grow back. Of course, he is still being breastfed.
Both Jessica and I have been working, along with Jake Marcus, to get RMH to change their "policy" (or verbal guideline as Naomi called it), or even admit that they are still looking into it, however we have been presented with nothing but a brick wall.
Jessica tried contacting Naomi Scott, Executive Director, by email several times with no response. A couple of weeks ago I contacted her by telephone, in the hopes of getting an update on whether the board had looked, or was still planning on looking, at a policy change, to no avail. She did actually answer the phone but when I let her know who was calling she immediately told me that she was unwilling to speak with me, and when I attempted to ask if there was someone else I might contact instead on the matter she told me she was hanging up now and then did.
At this point, now that we are aware that the Houston directors seem unwilling to handle the issue, or even discuss it, we are looking into other options. We are not giving up on the hope that RMH will change its "policy." These things can take time but we hope, with help, to keep reminding RMH that it is NOT ok to discriminate against nursing mothers and their children. We don't want this to happen to other moms in the future.
Thank you all again for all your support on this and, if you can take the time, please send the ProMom petition [note: this is an e-mail, not a petitiion, and please be sure that Jessica's name is spelled correctly - Swimeley] or a letter reminding RMH that you are still waiting for an update on the issue. Let them know we have not forgotten, that this is still an important issue.
:) Melanie
RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CONTACT INFORMATION
Ronald McDonald House Charities
Martin J. Coyne, Jr.
President and CEO
Ronald McDonald House Charities
One Kroc Drive
Oak Brook, IL 60523
Ronald McDonald House Charities Board of Trustees
(partial list)
Linda Dunham, Chairman
Wai-Ling Eng
Alberto E. de la Cruz
Jeffrey B. Kindler
Steven M. Ramirez
Ronald McDonald House of Houston
1907 Holcombe Blvd.
Houston, Texas 77030
2006 Board of Directors for the RMH of Houston
Emily A. Crosswell
David E. Copeland
Charles C. Kraft
Bette P. Thomas
Agatha E. Brann
Peggy Hennessy
John R. Allender
Carolyn Klevenhagen
Philip Tenenbaum
Harold L. Kingham
Maurine L. Alfrey
Carin Marcy Barth
Edward H. Cappel
Muffin Clark
Julie Comiskey
Jim Counts
Lesha Elsenbrook
Patti Everett
Linda G. Fields
Diedra Fontaine
Alexis Geissler
Leila P. Gilbert
Lynn Guggolz
Starlett Hollingsworth
Randall K. Howard
Elizabeth D. Kelley
Jayne Kendall
Paula Letbetter
Flo McGee
Cinda Y. Matthews
Rahul Mehta
Marilyn Mogas
David H. Morton
N.J. Pierce
David G. Poplack, M.D.
Jeff Powell
Ricky A. Raven
Todd A Reppert
Diane M. Riley
Sally Bell Rutherford
Ed Smith
Susie A. Smith
Trinidad Mendenhall Sosa
Janet I. Theriot
Elise V. Wilkinson
Melvyn Wolff
C. Dean Woods
Earl Wurzbach
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