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Ronald McDonald House of
Houston's Position on Breastfeeding.
please continue to read below for updates Because MotherVerse is a magazine that was designed to support mothers, I wanted to let all visitors here know about an incident that happened at the Houston Ronald McDonald House Thursday April 12th. I am currently staying at this Ronald McDonald House because my sister Jessica's(another editor of MV) son had brain surgery last week to remove a tumor and I am caring for her other children and my daughter at the Ronald McDonald House with our mother. On Thursday, when my sister's son was released for a couple of days from the hospital, she was breastfeeding him in the communal area of the house and was asked to stop and go upstairs to nurse by one of the employees. When she said she did not feel she should have to do that the employee got the Director of Operations on speaker phone and she told my sister that families who could not acclimate to the environment at RMH should find other accommodations. After sending her into tears because nursing is the only thing that calms and sustains her young son, they called the social worker at her son's hospital to complain and apparently to request that the social worker find other accommodations for us. We have been SO thankful for the Ronald McDonald House in our difficult situation and I would like to say that most of the employees have been wonderful, but we are now feeling very uncomfortable. We don't want the RMH to have bad press but we have been intimated and frightened. We don't want other mothers to feel this way about doing such a wonderful thing as nursing a sick child. Please read the whole story below... Melanie
Mayo-Laakso, Editor
Posted on April 13th 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 Thursday(April 12th) 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 she thought 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 told she might need to find other lodging, she was in tears and they weren't backing down. So I headed down there to talk to the employee that harassed her 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 employee she 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 appears to be 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**..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 that the RMH has great employees as well as the ones bullying us. We do not want to cause any problems for the families here or the RMH in general. We just want to know that we, as well as other mothers, can nurse without harassment at the RMH! My sister's son is very sick and needs all the breastmilk he can get.Ok here is the outcome of the meeting. We got out about and hour ago and I have been trying to find time to post here after returning some phone calls. On Mon 4/16 we had a meeting at RMH about the Issue, here is the outcome 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. This applies to us only, they would not divulge how they would handle other nursing moms. They said they were bending their guideline for us. They said if just one person complains about our nursing, and it was a complaint focused on an issue with breastfeeding itself rather than discreetness, 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. It seems that our right to breastfeed at the RMH is somewhat tentative. 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 their 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. How we feel about the outcome... 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! Melanie Mayo-Laakso, Editor
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. mamas, 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. Jessica Mayo-Swimeley RMH contact info can be found below. We would also like to thank Jake Marcus and Birth Without Boundaries, the wonderful non-profit organization that has advised and supported us and allowed us to make updates on their site. RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CONTACT INFORMATION Ronald McDonald House Charities Martin J. Coyne, Jr. Ronald McDonald House Charities Board of Trustees Linda Dunham, Chairman Ronald McDonald House of Houston 1907 Holcombe Blvd. 2006 Board of Directors for the RMH of Houston Emily A. Crosswell |