Rainbow Child Development Center Responds

The daycare that prohibited a Michigan mother from breastfeeding in her son’s room at the center responded by posting a comment today. Rainbow Child Development Center stated:

The Rainbow Child Development Center team would like to make a statement in reply to your concerns. Parents choose to enroll their children at our centers with the understanding that we will provide care and activities to stimulate social, emotional, and physical development. One aspect of this service includes providing programming that provides opportunities for children to reach developmental and academic milestones. Rainbow Child Development Center is supportive of breastfeeding. We adhere to the State of Michigan licensing rule R400.5205a (effective 12/7/2007) by supporting and accommodating breastfeeding and by providing a designated place set aside to accommodate mothers and their children who are breastfeeding. We have chosen a designated area which provides a quiet, soft environment for the nursing child and Mom with comfortable adult seating that includes a rocking chair. This area offers a place that will allow one-on-one time for the breastfeeding child and Mom. Our primary goal is to offer a caring atmosphere for children combined with a structured curriculum.

Never at anytime has a parent enrolled in our program been prohibited from breastfeeding, nor were children “evacuated” due to exposure to breastfeeding. There are many decisions and choices that parents choose to make in the best interest of their child that we do not incorporate into our program, breastfeeding has always been welcomed and supported in our centers. We do not challenge the legality of breastfeeding in public. We do however stand behind our dedication to the quality care that we’ve given all children.

For more than 20 years Rainbow Child Development Center has supported, encouraged and welcomed breastfeeding parents and teachers. If you have further questions please address them to Karen Krygier at the Home Office 248 569-2500. The Director of the Plymouth location, Mary Buchin is only following her job duties and should not be subjected to calls and/or e-mails; her time needs to be focused on the children in her care not defending a policy that is in compliance with the State of Michigan guidelines. We understand that breastfeeding is a very sensitive topic and respect your right to express your opinion; however we respectfully ask that you direct your concerns related to designated breastfeeding areas to your respective legislators.

I thank Rainbow Child Development Center for the response. I am disappointed that the response did not clarify the situation at all. Let me break it down point by point.

Parents choose to enroll their children at our centers with the understanding that we will provide care and activities to stimulate social, emotional, and physical development. One aspect of this service includes providing programming that provides opportunities for children to reach developmental and academic milestones.

I hope this is true of all daycare centers. However, by making a point of stating that you provide “opportunities for children to reach developmental and academic milestones” you seem to be implying that stopping breastfeeding at a certain age is a developmental milestone. Your statement must be taken into context–you allowed the child to breastfeed in his room until he turned age two and then stopped allowing him to breastfeed in his room after he turned two. Why? You have not addressed what precipitated this change. Your actions and your statement make it clear you do not support extended breastfeeding.

I understand that extended breastfeeding is not every mother’s choice, but it is a valid choice (and really, shouldn’t the issue focus on the child’s need anyway?) I do not understand why children in the United States are pushed to wean at an early age. That simply is not the cultural norm around the world. The research of anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler, Ph.D., provides a great deal of insight into the natural age of weaning.

In addition to misconceptions about the appropriate age for weaning there are terrible misconceptions about the emotional benefits of extended breastfeeding. Clearly many people believe that extended breastfeeding fosters an unhealthy dependence in the child. I won’t even get into the question of whether such a dependence would be unhealthy (is there such a pressing need for a two-year-old to be “independent”?) I’ll simply dispute the fact that it creates a dependence in the first place. By meeting the needs of a child in the early years, the child develops self-confidence and the sense of security that allows him to be more independent than he would have been otherwise. You can read more about the philosophy of attachment parenting and its benefits from the Sears family of pediatricians.

We adhere to the State of Michigan licensing rule R400.5205a (effective 12/7/2007) by supporting and accommodating breastfeeding and by providing a designated place set aside to accommodate mothers and their children who are breastfeeding. We have chosen a designated area which provides a quiet, soft environment for the nursing child and Mom with comfortable adult seating that includes a rocking chair.

You have failed to answer the question why your “designated area” is the only area in which a mother and child may breastfeed in the center. Why are you unwilling to accommodate breastfeeding in the child’s room as well? Certainly the rule you cite does not prohibit that accommodation.

This area offers a place that will allow one-on-one time for the breastfeeding child and Mom.

That’s wonderful for the child and mother who wish to breastfeed in private. Katy and her son wished to breastfeed in his daycare room. By preventing that, you have not accommodated breastfeeding nor have you met the needs of the child.

Never at anytime has a parent enrolled in our program been prohibited from breastfeeding, nor were children “evacuated” due to exposure to breastfeeding.

You’re dancing around the issue, playing a game of semantics. You prohibited Katy and her son from breastfeeding in his daycare room. The other children were “removed from the room” when Katy and her son attempted to breastfeed.

There is one final glaring omission in the response and that’s an apology for the way in which Katy and her son were treated and how they were made to feel. Not even an honest statement of “I’m sorry this individual situation was poorly handled but we stand by our policies.” You are hiding behind the letter of the law and not owning up to the simple fact that you have chosen to restrict breastfeeding to one area and one area only and that you are unwilling to accommodate any other needs, even if that’s what it would have taken for the child to have a good experience upon drop-off and pick-up from your daycare center.