By Laura Gunderson
The Oregonian
PORTLAND, Ore. — Four inmates at Oregon’s only prison for women pumped and bagged their breast milk daily to help nourish their newborn babies on the outside.
But staff at the Wilsonville prison regularly confused the bags last fall, providing the babies’ caregivers with milk from the wrong incarcerated mothers, including one diagnosed with Hepatitis C.
Officials at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility and the Oregon Department of Corrections discovered the mix-up only after inmates figured out what was happening on their own. The managers then brushed off the families’ concerns, several of the caregivers said.
Inmates are worried about contaminants in the other mothers’ milk, saying some women at Coffee Creek take prescribed medications or get hold of contraband drugs. At least two of the inmates said they were discouraged by prison officials from discussing the issue with the other nursing mothers, their families or their attorneys.
“I wanted to feed my baby healthy natural milk for at least a year,” said Marcie Harris, 35, who gave birth to a girl in August. Harris has served several sentences at Coffee Creek including her latest for an extortion conviction in Marion County.
“They disregarded my baby’s health and well-being,” she told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Harris says she was placed in solitary confinement and denied other parenting help because she has continued to complain about the mistakes.
Betty Bernt, a corrections spokeswoman, said Harris’ discipline wasn’t related to her concerns about the milk mix-up but for other behavior issues.
Milk program supervisors have addressed the problem and now require inmates to check bags before they go to caregivers, Bernt said. The department told inmates in a Dec. 7 letter that according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hepatitis B and C was unlikely to be transmitted through breast milk.
“I can assure you that the procedures we have currently have in place ensure the proper processing and distribution of breast milk,” Bernt said, “and encourages participation in this valuable program for mothers and their children.”
The Program
Coffee Creek currently holds about 1,280 women. That number has grown about 30 percent from a decade ago – a steady increase seen across the country. Nationwide, about 60 percent of incarcerated women reported having children, though a much smaller number – about 4 percent – gave birth behind bars.
The increase has brought focus to the issue of how to discipline mothers without also punishing their children, as well as how to help inmates become better parents when they get out.
The Corrections Department offers parenting classes and family gatherings for inmates at all its prisons. Coffee Creek also offers a program that allows mothers to spend several hours each week with their young children and babies.
Over the past five years, 32 women who have given birth while serving sentences at Coffee Creek have participated in the breastfeeding program.
The 7-year-old program provides breastfeeding education and guidance and allows inmates access to a breast pump in a supervised room at several points throughout the day. Inmates then drop off bagged milk at the prison medical center, where nursing staff freeze and store the bags – some with names scrawled on the side by the inmates and some without.
Families, foster parents or case workers are supposed to come by the prison weekly to pick up the two dozen or so small bags that nursing staff pack up.
Breastfeeding advocates and researchers believe such programs are important for inmates’ mental health and their future success and should be taken seriously.
“There is no reason for that mix-up to occur,” said Dr. Mary Byrne, a professor in the Clinical Health Care for the Underserved program at Columbia University in New York Byrne, who has studied positive outcomes for women inmates allowed time with their babies.
“That just shouldn’t happen,” she said. “There should be protocols to prevent that.”
Families Frustrated
Two of the four nursing mothers in the program last fall said it was an important link to their children and helped them feel more involved in their newborns’ care and health.
But Trisha Mart, who gave birth to a boy in August, said she became concerned in early October after hearing from her husband that he’d noticed someone else’s name on the milk bag after feeding the baby.
The family then started checking bags religiously, said Mart, who alerted The Oregonian/OregonLive of the problem.
Her husband, Matthew Singler of Eugene, said he received about a half-dozen mixed-up bags in October and November. One load of about 20 6-ounce bags included three different names, he said.
Mart’s stepfather, Walter Isaac of Springfield, also helped care for her baby and said he received as many as 10 wrong bags in September and October – some with others’ names, some with no names at all.
Singler and Isaac wonder how many bags of someone else’s milk they used before they discovered the mistake – and whether this has happened to other families in the past.
“This is important, not only for the mothers but for the children,” said Isaac, whose stepdaughter is serving three years for identity theft convictions in Lane County.
Caregivers of both Harris’ and Mart’s babies said their pediatricians told them any health consequences were unlikely. They also didn’t notice any immediate reactions the babies might have had to any medication or drugs in the milk.
But the families said that both doctors told them they would have to wait until the babies are older to be sure they haven’t contracted Hepatitis C.
Dr. Rupa Shah of Oregon Pediatrics said the only way the viral liver disease can be transmitted to nursing babies is if a mother’s nipple cracks and bleeds into the milk. Doctors can’t accurately test babies for the virus until they are 18 months old because they’re still developing, he said.
Mart said she started trying to alert the other mothers while her stepfather tried to contact prison officials.
“First they didn’t call me back,” Isaac said of a call he made to a Coffee Creek administrator. He then contacted a lawyer who agreed to call the Corrections Department’s lawyers. He got a call the next day, he said.
“But the guy who called gave me the old ‘soft shoe,’” Isaac said, “he was patronizing. He told me ‘everything was OK,’ and then he made light of the whole thing.”
Inmate Quits
Harris said she’d suspected something was wrong with milk distribution at Coffee Creek. On several occasions in early October, she said, her mother came to pick up bags Harris had said were ready, only to be told by medical staff that Harris hadn’t provided any.
The problem became clear when Mart told Harris that milk bags from Harris were going to Mart’s family.
Both women said they were immediately worried about their children’s health, especially after one of the nursing mothers told them she’d been diagnosed with Hepatitis C. They also were frustrated and angry that they’d worked hard to eat well, take care of themselves and go through the uncomfortable pumping process several times a day only to have their milk given to the wrong caregivers.
Mart and Harris began complaining individually to prison medical staff and officials in late October and early November, they said, but didn’t receive a response until a Dec. 7 letter from the nurse manager of Coffee Creek’s Health Services Department.
Bernt said all four women in the breastfeeding program lodged complaints about the problem.
The letter from the manager, Cally Ann Wolery, told the nursing mothers that each subsequently had been tested for hepatitis (B and C) and HIV and that their babies should be safe. The letter wasn’t sent to caregivers.
But Harris said the letter didn’t alleviate her concerns because she knew it was inaccurate.
She said she didn’t trust medical staff and had refused to be tested. A medical staff member had threatened to store her milk bags in the freezer alongside other inmates’ urine samples, she said. She also said staff belittled her about how much milk she produced.
Harris’ mother, Jacqueline Harris of Salem, cares for the baby and said the program had been good for her daughter.
“She wanted to do the breastfeeding because she wasn’t there to nurture her baby, to support her and watch her grow,” Jacqueline Harris said. “She would fill her bags, put her name on them and she wrote little notes to her baby.”
Since the mix-up, she said, Harris has stopped pumping.
Copyright 2016 The Oregonian