PA-Breastfeeding Coalition Minutes of meeting April 12, 2000

Present:
Karen Foard PA-MILC
Martha Kautz Lancaster County Bf Coalition & St Joseph Hospital
Chris Mulford PRO-LC (Eastern PA ILCA chapter)
Pat Paneghetti WIC
Kathy Romberger Pinnacle Health System
Jeanne Spencer Laurel Highlands Bf Coalition & rep from PA Academy of Family Practice
Helen Vermilya Susquehanna Health System

Guests:
Carol Jaggers CLC from Hanover Hospital
Wendy Shore Lactation counselor and nurse, Memorial Hospital in York

Minutes of the January bridge call were approved with one correction: the date of the October 2000 meeting is October 11, not October 1.

Treasurer's report was accepted. Our total balance is $932.97. Treasurer

Kathy Romberger asks that we complete our application for non-profit status since any interest we earn over $10.00 per year would have to be claimed on her personal income tax.

Old business:

Website:
Martha Kautz has not been able to find out exactly what has happened to our webpage, but it is broken and no one has been able to fix it. Karen Foard volunteered to work on the page once the problem has been solved. She suggested that we get an email address through Yahoo or Hotmail, since we need an address where people can get in touch with us for Jeanne Spencer's local coalition's billboard project. Jeanne will investigate getting such a temporary free account.

Martha reports that Barbara Shocker is looking into new servers, one of which is Hershey's Women's Health page. We agreed that it might be preferable to have our page with an institution that is likely to last rather than with a server which may go out of business and take our webpage with it.

Our domain name is PA-breastfeeding.org. We agreed that it is worth the $35 a year to maintain the registration for this name.

Martha will follow up with Barbara Shocker and Tasha Dershem. Kathy will get in touch with the original webmistress, Deb Shinskie, to see whether she still has PA-BC material that can be put on a disk for us. She will also investigate a commercial website service that might be willing to donate services to a non-profit group.

Non-profit status:
Karen has received historical material from Martha and will notify anyone who needs to give her any more. She noted that in-kind donations need to be documented. If the donating agency is writing off the amount of the donation, then we need to report the same amount as income.

Karen read the rules on lobbying and gave a copy to secretary Chris Mulford.

Endorsements:
Chris brought a proposal for a process the coalition can follow when it is asked to endorse a statement or position. She proposes that we consider endorsing as a coalition only, not in the names of our member groups. Then group representatives can take the endorsed statement back for their groups to consider endorsing. Martha asked that the proposal be sent to members with a cover letter and response sheet, asking for feedback to Martha by June 1, with the intention of voting on the proposal at the July meeting.

ILO statement:
Chris brought a draft statement she is asking the Coalition to send to the U.S. Department of Labor, calling for support of breastfeeding at the International Labor Organization in June. The group agreed with the statement but was concerned about whether calling for a particular action from a government body could be construed as lobbying. They preferred to re-word the statement to be clearly an educational effort. Chris will re-work the statement, then send to Jeanne for printing on letterhead and Martha for a signature.

World Breastfeeding Week:
Martha will check with Barbara Shocker about getting a governor's proclamation.

Karen's coalition wants to hear from anyone who has done a program to recognize "Bf-Friendly" businesses. Please give her feedback on successes and pitfalls. They are ordering stickers in May (which they will pass out to businesses that qualify) and will supply them to other groups at cost. Call, write, or email her.

Correspondence:
Martha has received three responses to issues of the newsletter. We were pleased that our effort to network with local groups is having an effect.

Mary Ann Mihok and Tasha Dershem wrote a one-column article on the Coalition for the PA Dietetic Association Newsletter. Martha has a copy.

Committee meetings and reports:
Public Relations worked on the next newsletter. This will include an invitation to join the coalition, encouragement to partner with local WIC programs to cover pump needs of low-income women, and information about the breastfeeding bills before Congress.

Public Policy has planned a project using a folder developed by Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies in Washington State. This folder (available free from HM, HB, 300 Elliott Avenue West, Suite 300, Seattle WA 98119-4118; phone (206) 281-8032, kimr@wsha.org) is called "Working and Breastfeeding:

It's worth it!"
Our project will prepare a packet for our country contacts and local coalitions to use for outreach to employers. We will adapt the cover letter from the folder, which is written to employers, and include some of the information sheets from the folder. These will be sent to the county contact list with our own cover letter explaining how the folder can be used. The project should cost about $230. We will have a sample packet for the coalition members to examine at the July meeting and ask for a vote of support at that meeting.

Research Committee did not meet.

Provider Education: Jeanne is tracking down the immunization posters.

Respectfully submitted,
Chris Mulford, Secretary

Meeting schedule and directions:
July 12--Harrisburg
October 11--State College

April and October meeting site
The South Ridge Motor Inn ( 814) 238-0571
1830 S. Atherton Street,
State College

No cost for meeting room if we eat lunch there. Soup, salad and sandwich for $3.75. Single room for $34. Two beds for $36.

Coming from Harrisburg direction (on 322) head toward downtown rather than toward campus (do not get on the bypass) Go through Boalsburg to the Hills Plaza Shopping Center. South Ridge is on the left.

Sharing:
A Lipton ad in the May Good Housekeeping mentions "one year of breastfeeding" as a normal maternal investment in a child. Karen will mention it on Lactnet and encourage positive feedback. Martha will write a letter of praise from PA-BC.

Martha's hospital-based program has a partner relationship with the local WIC. The hospital provides electric pumps for NICU moms and WIC provides pumps for working moms.

The Lancaster County Coalition will recognize Lancaster Laboratories, an outstanding family-friendly workplace, for WBfW, and will invite the press. Chris recommended hospital Public Relations departments as a good source for press contact information. Jeanne advised that we make the calls ourselves, even if using the hospital's list.

Martha's Lactation Center had an initiation rate of 79% last year!!! She attributes this increase to the nine midwives recently added to the staff. She follows up all moms at risk for breastfeeding difficulty: first time breastfeeders, NICU babies, high-risk mothers (70% of her bf population) and found about 80% of those followed were still breastfeeding at 3 months, 60% at five months.

Martha plans to write a booklet for bf professionals on complementary and alternative therapies for the bf dyad.

Chris told about her recent advocacy activities at the AFL-CIO working women meeting and the Feminist Expo in Baltimore, where many students picked up her handout "Rate your college for breastfeeding literacy."

Kathy reported that she is setting up an employee lactation room in Community General Osteopathic Hospital. A mom whose baby was placed in foster care by Child Protective Services is using a loaner pump to supply milk to her baby.

Kathy plans to build her WBfW program around the new dollar coin with Sacajawea and her baby. She'll use Sacajawea as a model of a successful working/nursing mother. She plans to make a card that will hold a coin, then give them to breastfeeding moms as a gift.