이거 좀 월요일에 좋은 것 같아요 제가... 이거 진짜 좋은 것 같아요 오늘 라면을 어떻게 느껴줘요? 근데... 똑같은 거 보면 돼요? 이거 좋은 것 같아요 사실은 처음에... 오케이, 처음에 어제 3시쯤 먹지 않았어요 오늘 7시 30분? 오늘? 아, 지금까지? 정말 저렴해 정말 저렴해 제가... 제가 정말 저렴한... 헝가? 제가 저렴한 헝가? 네, 제가 저렴한 헝가가 정말 저렴해 와우 저렴해 엄청나 너무 아쉬워 여기 있어요 오늘 물을 많이 벌렸어요 내일 물을 많이 벌렸어요 You're hungry now? 30? 정말? 와우, 어떻게 할 수 있을까요? 30일? I'm so curious I think it's really 30 And the weather is hot and... 와우 It was so sorry 만약에 물을 마실 수 있다면, 제가 이걸로 할 수 있을 것 같아요. 어떤 각도에서 탈 수 없구나. 여기가 좀 최선이다. 잠시만. 네, 지금 마실 수 있어요. 아니, 지금 마실 수 있어요. 아, 무슨 시간일까요? 낮잎이에요. 지금 마실 수 있어요. 지금 마실 수 있어요. 지금 마실 수 있어요. When is your epitale? Wait, what is that? Break fast. What is break fast? Iftar? Iftar 맞나? Is it called iftar? The first meal that you can eat after sunset is iftar. Right? Iftar 맞나? 기억 안 나. Yeah, iftar 맞아. So I ate kimchi soup today. Kimchi soup. Because kimchi soup is my favorite food. So I ate kimchi soup. Yeah, I think I hope you will be better tomorrow. Tomorrow is second day. Yeah, second day. And I did first day. And first day clear. I didn't eat anything. And I didn't drink water. So I succeed first day. I'm so proud of myself. 7시? So you have one hour left now. Will you continue fasting? Yes, sure. Sure. I think I can do for one month. I think one month is really hard. It's really hard. I think I should eat more drink water before fasting. And I think the dates. Kind of fruits. Dry fruits. Techo. But there are not dates. It's hard to find dates in Cheonan. But I think it will be helpful. Dry fruits. Yeah, I heard dried fruits. You should buy dates. 어떻게 해요? How to read? Dates or dates? Dates or dates? Only the few days might be tiring. Really? I feel so tiring now. Actually I wanted to upload new video. But I couldn't upload video. Because I was so tired. I was so tired. I was so exhausted. I have no energy. I had no energy. So I couldn't upload video. Because I was so exhausted. Oh no. 어떻게 해요? 이렇게 하면 되겠다. 됐어. 이렇게 하면 되겠다. Perfect. Good luck brother. Thank you for our left. Now in Korea it's midnight. So I can eat. I'm so sorry. But I'm so hungry now.  I'm sorry. It's okay. Because I'm so hungry now. 자 여러분. 먹겠습니다. 죄송합니다. I'm so sorry. 여러분 화이팅. 여러분 화이팅. You can do it. 화이팅. Because I'm so hungry now. 초콜릿 봐. Yes I did. Today was the first day of my fasting in my life. I eat fast for you twice. I eat very fast for you. Are you from Seoul? No. I'm Cheonan. I live in Cheonan. It was good. I want to say this. When you do fasting. I can feel that. Not only me. If I do fasting only me. Then I feel like lonely maybe. But I feel that. Everyone. Every Muslim people in the world. Fast together. So I feel very. I'm not alone. And many people do fast with me. And have sharing the same feeling together. That's amazing. I think that's really amazing thing. I will do fast tomorrow too. How much can you eat? Is there a certain amount? Until 3 hours. Because next fasting hour. First start at 3am. And this is midnight. So I can eat 3 hours more. I can eat 3 hours more. So I brought a big water today. You live in Cheonan? Who are you? Really? Do you live in Cheonan? 진짜? Why do you live in Cheonan? 대박. I didn't see any foreigner people in Cheonan. Why does your parents about your fasting? My parents don't care about me. Because they live far from me. We don't live together. So they don't know even I fast. I know Ramadan is not just fasting. Are you fasting now? Or is it finished already? Every country have different time. That's interesting. Why are you separate? I don't know. If you are over 20. We go... We live, I live myself. Isn't it? How about your country? Because in Korea is not common. But my family, when I was 20. My family told me. You should go out. So I didn't want to go out. And I didn't want to live myself. But my parents told me. You have to go out. So I went out. And I live myself. So I live alone. For 7 years maybe. 7 years, 8 years. How many hours did you fast? Wait. 3 hours to 7 am. 3 pm to 7 am. 3 am to 7 pm. How many hours? 16 hours. 16 hours. 1 hour left. 화이팅입니다. We live together forever? 말도 안 돼. If you marry. Then you have to live separate. Isn't it? Please watch sonar new video. What did she upload? Fruits. Dried fruits is helpful for fasting. 물 좀 먹겠습니다. 죄송합니다. 이따 술. 내일. 죄송합니다. 아, 드러스도 좀 힌트? 아, 맞아요. 제가 gold something. insulting. 마상 라마다 무빙락을 해볼거에요 라마다 무빙락과 라마다 무빙락이 다른데요 내 мам을 가지고 있어요 다음 주에 제 친구들과 함께 만나요 롤러스는 롤러스에 가고 있어요 이탈리에 있는 롤러스에 있는 롤러스에 있는 롤러스는 한국에서 가요 첫 날은 힘들어요 네, 첫 날은 아주 힘들어요 감사합니다 롤러스는 한국에서 롤러스는 이탈리에 있는 롤러스 입니다 롤러스는 한국에서 가요 롤러스는 한국에서 가요 누가 죽을까요? 26살 라마다 무빙락 오늘 뭐 하는거야? 사실 오늘 아무것도 안했을거에요 사실 제 계획은 오늘 새로운 영상으로 업로드하고 오늘 오늘 너무 엉덩이 되었어요 전혀 에너지 없어서 그냥 아무것도 안했을거에요 저는 너무 엉덩이 되었어요 너무 엉덩이 되었어요 I'm thirsty I'm hungry I just waited the time the sunset time 7.30pm I just waited dinner time and nothing I just did nothing I was like I'm so hungry I'm so thirsty I'm so thirsty I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm thinking nothing I don't think anything I just waited the time I just waited the time today So that's why I didn't 업로드한 새로운 영상으로 업로드한 영상 Maybe I will upload the video tomorrow I'm still alive I'm so proud of myself I didn't die I'm so proud of myself I didn't die I didn't die I'm still alive I feel so I feel that I feel that I feel that The first thing I feel is The water is Wow How to say this It's so much important I just When I didn't fast before that Before fasting I really didn't notice that Water is this important I feel water is water Drink or not Sometimes I just let it to drink But Yesterday After fasting I feel that Water is so much important No Water is tasty Water is very tasty Like This is Wow Like present I feel like this is present for me God give me the present for me Do you know that Wow Water is so tasty God give me Yeah the present In my life So thankful No I don't smoke And food too I was so hungry too When I ate I ate kimchi soup today I cooked myself And wow This food is so much delicious This is just same food That I always eat But food was also so delicious Still important Yeah I text my muslim friends Congratulations You did good job And eat a lot of things For an appetite So I feel very happy Many many people do fasting with me And like Eat the food at the same time And say congratulations So it was really good Do you use No I don't drink I don't drink alcohol Do you think that you can maybe change muslim Maybe But I'm just still learning now So I'm not muslim But I'm just still And actually nowadays Almost of my friends are muslim And Almost they I hang out with muslim friends And I spend a lot of time to learning Islam So maybe It can be but not now I want to accept that When I understand it fully Anyway But I did fasting Like a first step First step Do you pray at the mosque? No I don't pray But I will go mosque This weekend With my friend Dina With Dina And I will meet My friends at there And have a good start In Korea How did you learn English? I learned English in my school Mosque for What is Terabi? My friends My parents are Christian So maybe they think Yeah Maybe they think weird But actually my parents don't care about What I do Whatever I do they don't care about that So it's okay Do you break your fast alone?  I'm a joke Sure I'm planning to donate my money To There is a There is a Some groups that I can donate money In Korea To poor people Like no parents And no homeless Children For children I will donate money To The The groups that help the homeless children 장학대단 거기에다가 그러면 기부를 할까 생각 중입니다 But I'm poor too So help me I'm poor I have no money Forgive me that I drink water In front of you Because I have to start fast again Three hours later So it's very important for me Give money You are not poor You have us Yes you are Yes I'm so lit My mind is so lit I'm a hallo less strong in Korea It's not many But you can find many hallo less strong in Taiwan Don't drink in front of you Okay I'm sorry Can I drink water? I drink water When I want to drink Then I will Camera off I will not show you I'm drinking water To not make you Hungry What area do you work? I work in Cheonan If you are fasting for the first time You should not drink a lot of water at once Yeah I know I know that What place should I visit in Korea? Seoul Busan, Jeju Island I thought you wanted to fast Yes I'm doing fasting But this is midnight So I don't have to fast now I have to eat to fast And you care about this chill Ask around Make them feel bad and say I'm just messing It's cute Cute Have you been to Buzhu? Buzhu Where is Buzhu? Come to Busan Do you live in Busan? I've never ever Been to Busan before But I heard it's so beautiful So I should go I should go to Busan I heard it's so beautiful Today's the first Do you feel hungry? No I'm not hungry I ate already I already ate Are you gonna marry a Muslim girl? What is the question? I don't know Who knows Who knows How I know I will marry a Muslim girl Or are you Muslim? Or will you marry me? Will you not Muslim? Or I will not marry you That's not As you go To this Lamaran 내가 다 찍어서 말해줄게 I will make the video I will make the video and I will upload Why I start fasting And what is the goal of the What is the purpose of the fasting For me But the reasons And everything And how I feel about the fasting I will make the video and upload I'm trying to upload tomorrow But I think I guess maybe tomorrow Also I will feel like this I'm so hungry I don't wanna do anything When is the eating time? When is the if time? So I think I can sure That I can upload or not But I will try okay I will try I will try Hello Boroco Why don't you get married with Dina? No way she is my friend How to marry Do you wanna marry your friend? How was the fasting? So many chat Right You are Cute? Thank you Fighting for the fasting Oh Malaysia? I love Malaysia so much You know that I wanna go Malaysia soon I wanna study in Malaysia When does your shift finish? 9 hours left 9 hours left Where are you learning English? In school Oh that's good idea Oh right There is a song There is a song Wait So many messages Talk less You are tired yourself OMG Great How was the day? Actually I explained it Already But it was good Will you convert 지금 먹을거야 지금 먹을거야 Because it's midnight Almost 1am So I think I should eat What should I eat? What should I eat? Maybe Maybe like Protein Protein I think I should eat protein food Like chicken or egg Maybe I think I should Many people ask me in live streaming And other videos Why you don't convert to Islam Or why you are not Muslim Blah blah blah I will make the reason I will talk about that later In the video Fast Fast is really good for health I feel like more How to say it Even it's one day Actually The other days You eat many things Like very oily food And other meats And you just don't care About snacks And not unhealthy food But now I just I don't eat snacks Or cola Or sprite Like soda Or unhealthy food Just for one day But it feels like You know the detox You know that I feel like my body is changing It's just one day So if I try for one month I think it will be really changing I think I will I can show the real change of my body 안녕하세요 안녕하세요 괜찮을 것 같아요 I don't even I'm really really really crazy at Coke you know Cola Especially Jero Coke I really addicted in Coke so I always eat that And with snacks And chocolate I love chocolate But I try to Don't eat I expect that My healthy I will be more healthy Because my eating What is that? How to say that My eating habit is so bad It's so bad I love hamburger, pizza And many unhealthy food But So I expect that It can be healthy Sure And maybe I hope that I can diet To lose my weight My belly is like this way So now I hope I can be diet too Yogurt Yogurt That's helpful Date I wanna date but It's really hard to find in Korea That's so sweet Protein Cheese, milk, yogurt, egg Oh got a vegetable Okay Pork is very unhealthy I know I don't like pork either Well actually I eat pork Because I don't eat the pork But in Korea Almost every food based on pork I mean the soup So They are So it's really really hard To avoid the pork in Korea It's really hard Don't eat meat Like Including the Beef or chicken Please make a video with dinner As I will make Video With dinner this Saturday We are going to Korean mosque Having Iftar together Yeah I can eat meat Like chicken or beef is okay isn't it Do you eat chicken?   Yes Your brother Me too Iftar over? No I'm still Iftar Oh my god Do you like pork? No I don't like pork Can I drink water? Give me 5 seconds please Sorry This is SUHUR for me now SUHUR SUHUR Okay No you can't Hey guys I have to fast 2 hours later Basically like water fasting But no I think about water But I love water now I love water Right now after fasting I love water 진짜 엄청 먹고싶더라 I was so thirsty Yesterday I was almost died But I want to drink water I want to drink water I want to drink water I want to drink water Wow The water was so delicious I was feeling like Oh my god this water is so much It can use bad word But almost I use bad word This is so freaking cool After fasting I love water Yeah really 어서오세요 I just wanted to give you a gift Thank you 감사합니다 And notice like guys It was so cool Like you know It feels like I am traveling The desert for like Like for a month And I didn't eat anything I didn't drink anything But I found the washes In the desert and oh my god It feels a little bit awkward Yeah it was like finding All washes in the desert The exact feeling that I Eat the first water Yesterday after fasting Oh my god I think that's why people do fast Like how much How you can feel the importance of the water Importance of the food And like 어서오세요 Because the other days you can't Know the importance of Your The thing you just think Water is water Food is food Yeah it's just very natural thing But it's not It's really really Precious and important thing So I think you can You can understand and you can know And accept that how it's important And you can feel how other poor people Feel that Without water or without food Yeah right Exactly exactly As well So I think that's why You donate the money Or food to pure people And the sharing The most duty It's not just for For any human being Helping people and sharing food So that's what I want to say I forgot what I said about What's your shop name is E-mark 24 노래를 좀 췄게요 여러분 잠시만요 Yeah I know I love that 어서오세요 I am late It was good It was tired, exhausted So I didn't I even didn't upload new video yesterday Because I have no energy to edit But It's still so good It's still so Awesome I actually explained a lot So I will make the video about this Exactly next time Do you like fasting? Yes I like fasting I really like that During the fasting I feel like really exhausted and hard But after fasting I feel so proud of that And I feel that oh I did it And I feel And then I feel like It's changing And oh this is so healthy And like feeling the detox My bad things are going out Yeah it's really good I didn't know that before Hearing about the Ramadan But I did it And I did it myself And I feel that Now how it feels and how I can feel And what is the meaning of the fasting Yeah it was really good He already broke his vest He broke This is Now it's So that means break Today Let me try a video about the action Breakfast and when How I feel about the Ramadan I will make the video about Yeah I will make the reaction Not reaction video It's like leave you I don't know how to say it Fasting how I feel How I think about that How I feel that But I will make one month later One month later Because I will try one month If just one day Everyone can do one day Just for participation Experience But if you really want to Feel and if you really want to Do it I think you should do it For one month And then you can really feel That the change of your body And you can understand fully About the meaning and fully About how you have to Help other people Why you have to donate to other people And like Community things It's really hard to explain with English My English is not very good So If I explain with Korean I can explain so well My Korean is really good I speak Korean so well So I can explain so well with Korean But English Is hard So yeah I will I decide I will fast one month One month, not one day Or not one week Because I did it for one day So I I know it, it's really good And I want to experience With my Muslim friends Not responsibility I feel like I have to do You know what I mean I feel like I have to do It's really good I will do it for one month And then I will make a video About how I feel and what is The change of my life After fasting how my life is changing I will make the video about that My idea Wait Wait You're sleepy You have to sleep then I have class I'm so curious about that How is your school How is your school You go to school right In the Amadan area Then Oh no I promise I promise that I will not show you the drinking Then How You go to school If you have four classes Then you reduce the time Or just go to school fully I'm so curious Or you work fully too Because If me I think I can study well Because yesterday I feel that Oh my god this is so crazy I can't focus on anything Yesterday I planned to edit video and upload new video But yesterday I reduced time You have to do it Because yesterday I feel like Nothing so exhausted So I feel so tired So I couldn't do anything So I think As a student And they are young So I think they cannot focus On studying well So that's good idea You have to reduce the time of studying You have to do it We can't focus I really feel that easy 대박 For me it's not easy Last tired, last hungry Lasting day we should eat fruits and diet Only for oil? Say there is amazing person Sports lesson You do sports while in Amadan Oh my god you are amazing Can you do it Oh my god Wait Oh my god I can imagine After exercising You are sweaty You have a lot of water But you cannot drink water Wow That's crazy I will never exercise Even if it's an exercising class I will not exercise I will tell the teacher Hey teacher I'm not feeling I'm moving now I don't move I just I just sit down Or I just lay down I don't want to move So please skip the sports class Please I feel like I even don't want to move I'm just like this Yesterday Yesterday Yesterday I was like I don't want to move 대박 We have to eat a lot What time left? 2hrs left 2hrs later I will start fast again Fasting Our old work It means to fat along with our work But this I know But it's not easy for me 너무 마사지 많은데 Peaks cannot remove tonics Body harmful to it It's okay? I can drink in front of you 아 맞아 That's right But you know Korean people love Love eating salty food They love eating salty food So if I eat Korean food In Ramadan That's so much hard for me Because it's so salty Then I will drink Okay? In front of you 5hrs That's cool Did you celebrate 8 too? Ad는 그거 아니야? Ad means after fasting Ad means Ad day is one month after So it's June Your hair is like broccoli too Really? My hair looks broccoli That sounds good Your hair looks like broccoli Coconut water 없어 There is no coconut water There is just only No more water I cannot eat Come to Turkey I wanna go Turkey I wanna go Istanbul Lost in Istanbul Anyone live in Istanbul? Can you guide for me? Istanbul? My hairstyle is very Normal Korean Korean hairstyle Come to Pakistan Pakistan은 어디가 좋아요? Where do I have to go Pakistan? No, my hair is black I didn't dye my hair This is black 아 맞아 I heard that you cannot Even You'd better to not listen music It's right Music is not That haram thing But it's better to not listening music Because you have to focus on The religious thing More like Korean And the word of God But I know that But I work here And if I turn off the music My booth cover me And I turn off the music in the Store So that's That's kind of impossible So I hope you can understand that I want to follow That your things Islam things but But it's impossible I cannot turn off the music In the store You cannot stop music Yes, it's better to listen to Korean I think so too Fast from tomorrow Oh, fighting! Ramadan Karim And Ramadan Mubarak And everything we're gonna Well And Having a precious time With your family Yeah, everything It's really good for Muslim family So I was like Actually I have no Muslim family So I cannot feel About the feelings that you can feel In Ramadan But I think maybe I guess it's like Christmas thing In Korea because Not Christmas Not Christmas It's very nice Like because you You share your food And With family thing So much Because I really like Having time with my family So It's really good I think I will go to mosque This Saturday To enjoy Iftar With my Muslim friends Muslim family So I think I can feel that this Saturday I'm so excited To have Iftar With my family Because I'm trying fasting by myself Yeah, it's like Chuseok, exactly So it's like feel Kind of am I right Or also feel like little bit lonely And I want to Feel more about their culture thing So I'm so excited To go mosque This Saturday I'm so excited Watching from Egypt Hello Egypt Hello Salah Do you know Salah? He is so popular in Korea I think he is the most popular Popular guy Popular Egyptian in the world Salah Muhammad Salah Liverpool Egypt Parau Hello Dubai Are you fasting? I did fasting and I will fasting too But now It's not Oh I want to go to Netherlands Will you guide for me If I go there Oh it's so sweet You are my family It's so good Can you be my family My Muslim families So good So I can feel same thing with you Fasting Iftar Yeah I can feel the same things with you Family You are my family Yes I am working now You guys are so sweet Why are you guys so sweet Why are you so sweet Which football club you like You don't know because I like FC Seoul But you don't know what is FC Seoul Because it's Korean football team And if I like Tottenham too Because there is Korean player I am so Korean What's wrong with me Yes I like Tottenham Because Son Heungmin Is playing in there Watching from Kuwait Hello Kuwait JBs are so sweet I love you guys Son Heungmin Oh I like Turkey Hello Turkey There are so many Arab people Oppa you are working Do you think you will come From Do you watch re-talk about Algeria No I didn't know that Why do you talk about Algeria Your face from side you look 아 맞아 Everyone cheer up You guys are infesting now Right now Because Korea and your time Is very different So I think you are still fasting So fighting You can do it I did it too Fighting together 같이 같이 화이팅 I love that feeling If you fast alone Then I think I feel like No I am so lonely You did it You did it with A billion million People together The same things With other people Together So two hours left One hour left The last one hour Is really hard Last one hour Was so hard Because I didn't watch the time wrong So I thought It was 6pm but it was 7pm I mean I thought it was 6.30 The sunset but it was 7.30 So the one hour Is so long It feels like not one hour It feels like 10 hours or 12 hours The last one hour is so much hard So fighting Because it's night shift Night shift Work Thank you So what time is it Oh my god It's almost So I will gonna Today's broadcast Is done So let's Maybe I will try to broadcast Maybe tomorrow too Then see you See you tomorrow Because I have to focus on Mard I have to go back And arrange something So Bye bye guys And take care and be safe And fighting For your fasting And Okay So bye bye guys 안녕 Take care and be safe And Ramadan Karim And Ramadan Mubalak


ursing pillow also follows the same motion a lactation consultant uses to describe feeding your baby. A lactation specialist will talk about holding the baby in a C-shape, hold, allowing you to aim your nipple in the proper position so that baby latches on correctly. The C-shaped pillow is intuitive and less guesswork for a tired NICU mom is a huge confidence boost. If you break down the components of the C-shaped pillow, the most important feature might be the arms of the seed that come around and hug mom's body. They provide mom with the ergonomic support she needs to keep herself comfortable while keeping baby positioned correctly at the breast without the worry of that pillow moving around. For NICU moms, babies low oral tone make it harder for them to create that deep latch at the breast, therefore mom must manipulate baby's head and her nipple to help create that for the baby. For this reason, having the arm support so that mom can hold that position is critical. Nursing sessions can take anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes and they're performed every three hours in the NICU so long as baby is stable. Having done this myself, not having that arm support would have made it extremely difficult for me to be able to perform this task and hold my arms in that position over and over again without the support. Finally, I don't know how many of you have had C-sections, but they're painful and can be tender and sore for months post birth. The C-shaped pillow hugs mom in the perfect spot just above the C-section scar and provides that barrier between your body and baby making it possible to still be skin to skin in the nursing position without extra tenderness for mom. It's the perfect combination of comfort and protection for mom while offering that firmer inside cushion to keep baby on a supportive stable ledge to nurse. I included a slide for your review that demonstrates the difficulty of early breastfeeding in the NICU and the coordination that goes along with feeding a premature baby. I believe very strongly as someone who has walked this walk and who continues to support moms in the NICU and reaching positive outcomes for their babies, that if the C-shaped nursing pillow were to be modified too drastically, you'd be compromising the ability for mom to provide breast milk to her baby.  It's emotional, scary and exhausting in a way that is not true for a mom of a term baby. We should all collectively be working towards giving these moms every advantage and tool at our disposal to make their journey easier and their outcome from their babies more positive. Breast milk is liquid gold. Supplying breast milk to a NICU baby is no small feat and one of the most critical tools provided to mom in supporting and supplying breast milk inside the NICU is the C-shaped nursing pillow. I ask that you consider the ramifications for these families when you are looking at potentially changing the form of these pillows. I hope that I have demonstrated how the nursing pillow in its current C-shaped form is what is helping to support, promote and keep mom engaged in breastfeeding her tiny but mighty baby. If the nursing pillow became smaller, harder against mom's body or more difficult to hold on her lap with the baby, she would forgo attempting to breastfeed and resort to the easier road of formula which we know does not have the same health benefits for this growing population of tiny babies. I thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you, Ms. Joseph. Now recognize Ms. McCoy for 10 minutes. Hello, my name is Abrey McCoy and I am a certified lactation counselor at SimplyFed. SimplyFed provides virtual breastfeeding and babyfeeding support to new families covered by health plans across the United States. As a lactation counselor, I work with nursing parents to help support them on their babyfeeding and breastfeeding journey, including helping them with latching, positioning their supply and working with their breast pumps. As a provider at SimplyFed, we want healthy babies and healthy moms. A healthy mom is one that has the freedom to choose how to feed her baby in the way that she wants that protects her physical and mental health tied to services and tools like nursing supports and breast pumps. I support hundreds of parents each year to aid them in their breastfeeding journey and nursing pillows are an important part of that journey. Nursing pillows are used for breastfeeding a million times a day. They both increase the rates. They, the pillows themselves increase the rates of breastfeeding, especially as Teresa had said with C-sections. I myself have dealt with a C-section and use those supports while breastfeeding. So with that being said, the use of these pillows does increase the rates of breastfeeding and it has major health benefits for both moms and babies. Nursing supports are safe and immensely beneficial when used as directed. We must ensure that these products remain effective and available for moms and caregivers. I am calling on the CPSC to dedicate funds towards education on safe sleep and proper usage of nursing pillows instead of working to ban products that are not only safe but incredibly beneficial to moms and babies when used appropriately. Breastfeeding is deeply tied to a woman's physical and mental health and they deserve to have accessible and affordable access to tools like nursing pillows to safely navigate their breastfeeding and babyfeeding journey. We also know from the data that breast milk has several other health benefits for both parent and baby. Breast milk can help protect babies against some short and long-term illnesses and diseases. Breastfed babies have a lower risk of asthma, obesity, type 1 diabetes, and sudden infant death syndrome. Research also shows that breastfed babies are less likely to have ear infections or stomach bugs. For the nursing parent, lactation provides decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, heart attack, and various types of cancers. These health benefits benefit and save families and the health system money. I'm urging you to remove the unnecessary barriers for families who want to provide breast milk for their infant children by allowing access to nursing pillows. As a healthcare professional working with nursing women from many socioeconomic levels, this will support families in their journey and allow them to prolong their breastfeeding journey. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. McCoy. Now I'm going to turn to Ms. Thomas Romero. Thank you. Honorable Chair, Hohenzarek, Commissioner Trumka, Commissioner Feldman, and Commissioner Boyle. My name is Myra D. Thomas Romero, and my husband and I are here as parents of a product hazard infant victim. Our daughter, Alicia Isabel Thomas, who was born September 30th of 2021 and suffocated on an infant lounger on March 18th of 2022, the Friday before my 32nd birthday weekend. I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the agendas and priorities as the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, in my opinion, is one of the few federal agencies that is tasked solely and exclusively with protecting human lives over corporate or monetary interests. For taking on this work professionally, each of you are heroes. I'd like you all to know that I'm eternally grateful for you, even if we've yet to have contact. We called our daughter, Allie Bell, and she too is grateful for your devotion. I am sure of it. I do not represent any organization and I'm a simple, average and educated consumer as I just that jumped headfirst into voluntary standards development at ASTM International. The American National Standard Institute or ANSI Consumer Liaison has served as a great resource alongside the amazing agency consumer ombudsman to help educate me on the process and procedure. I apologize if any of my statements are not what industry perceives as factual. I've learned that their intelligence and innovative mindset means that we speak very different languages, particularly as an immigrant from Mexico who lives in a county and where our neighborhood home value is about $60,000 and about half have not obtained over any higher education past high school. We are diverse, humble and kind and are always working on something, traits that we from Wyandotte County in Kansas City, Kansas, wherewith pride. Thank you to the unified government of Wyandotte County, who I was a contractor for during Allie's pregnancy, birth and death alongside the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department and Fire Department staff and the staff at Providence for helping us that morning. Increasing SaferProducts.gov visibility. When I first reported our daughter's death to SaferProducts.gov, I honestly do not recall much about the process. I submitted my report a fit of anger after brave reporting from consumer reports informed me that our daughter did not have to die. And that we were in the small percentage of consumers who did not receive a notice from a manufacturer of their renewed compliance with the infant sleeper role or a correction active plan in 2020. In my grave, I downloaded all of the publicly available infant death reports and the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System reports and sifted through each one in hopes that one report, the one report I saw for said manufacturer was truly the only death attributed. And was crushed when I noticed that there were two others which had been classified under the wrong trademark spelling of that product's name. I pointed this out to the agency to which the reports were compiled for easy consumer inquiry, but at that point they totaled four. I recommend that the commission make it a common practice to check voluntary industry identifications for internal investigations and force manufacturers to report the trademark names of brands products when available. While it would not have saved our sweet girl, the parents of new deaths have had an easier search for answers. Thank you to the epidemiologists and staff at the CPSC who have investigated each of these deaths and helped our unwanted fraternity heal infant loungers. Our daughter died in a consumer infant lounger that as I stated failed to warn us of a change in use that could have easily deterred babies from dying. We owned multiple stages of the product that lacked clear warnings labeling and never provided us with website updates or updates to their marketing practices. I'd like the agency to prioritize infant loungers in the coming year as a product hazard hazard category that has yet through May 9th of 2022. Been able to formulate a voluntary standard at ASTM international to regulate these products. As we all in the room know most of these products were once in bed sleepers or co sleepers and have since simply been reclassified as infant loungers. We stand since last week's juvenile product meetings without a logical definition of what falls into the scope and what does not. This cloudiness among industry makes it clear to me that if they themselves cannot identify in plain language what falls into this product category then how would the average consumer new parent. To me it's no wonder why infants are still dying on banned products from banned products from us sales. And I stress the need for the commission to rule with an iron fist when addressing product hazard from these products had product categories into monitor emerging hazard pattern trends that we have recently seen including our daughters. To my knowledge as of these more this morning these products are still being sold in the United States. Weighted sleep sacks wearable blankets or swaddles. I will try to restrict my comments for this product class to say that Ali also died where wearing a weighted sleep sack. And appeared to be the first weighted sleep sack death noted on safer products dot gov. My report was made public the same day that Dr. Rachel moons American Academy of Pediatrics sleep policy was updated June 21st of 2022. Recommending that they not be used even then with her knowledge of absence of deaths. Many of you know that this is a new voluntary standard that is also being developed at ASTM, which I am grateful for since infant sleep wear like swaddles and sleep sacks have no, no. So sorry. Have no applicable voluntary standard. Unfortunately, I have to report that these products that are weighted are continuing in the scope against all of us advocates who are. Participating in crying out against this being the case we learned of a new death that was made public on my 33rd birthday. This year that occurred in the same weighted sleep sack in the same lounger that ours happened only this one happened in 2021. I raised at my in person attendance at ASTM in Philly last week. How many deaths or if there had ever been a number of deaths that stopped voluntary standards development. I was dismayed when I was told that this question was better raised to the CPSC than to industry. Again, commission, I stress the need to keep a vigilant eye on this product hazard pattern. I shared with the agency that the product where Ali died has customer reviews on the website. All over you'll see unsafe sleeping environments with bound products just like our lounger. And it's just rampant with consumer images while it is out of the scope of the commission. It's still something you guys need to be aware of. Commemorating the victims of product hazards victims and their families. This opportunity is bittersweet for my husband as I as for the past year, many of you know, I have been all consumed with advocating for what happened to our family. Our family is well over 60 people have responded to the hospital that morning think that Ali died thinking it was a simple accident. Only to see me cradling her body among whales from the depths of my soul for three hours before the corner took her away. While I have mostly been treated with respect and understanding at voluntary standards meeting, I'd like to say that there is a disconnect between industry and consumers that is larger than I ever imagined. I am forced to quickly remark that I'm a dead baby mom while raising valid points only to be brushed aside. As most of them have never experienced the hell that is infant loss. And for most of them always assume it's consumer misuse not foreseeable misuse. Something I know you all recognize and that I'm very grateful for. We never had the opportunity to host a funeral for our infant. For our young infant.  The bail of suspicion sometimes does not lift for months. During a call with commissioner Trump on November 16, 2022. I presented the idea that safer products dot gov commemorate the victims and deceitants of product hazards. By allowing those families who wish to provide a picture and a personal antidote of their miss family member to shorten life. And then give that work product to manufacturers. The commission can consider making that database public if a consumer wishes as a way to commemorate the victims of product hazards who did not receive a funeral. I encourage the commission to also consider this in the coming years. We survivors would love nothing more than our family to be commemorated. In a permanent way since private litigation for these product liability deaths means that attorneys asked that we not say much about the incident outside of a courtroom. This consumer gag rule that no one discusses openly. Is a huge concern and having had to live through it with counsel that was so inadequate that he forbade me to talk to the commission for months. I can say it's a secondary hell that I don't wish on even upon industry. I did not listen and I'm glad through today that I chose my own path versus legal counsel that was inadequate. To allow the commission to issue a notice of violation when it was very clearly necessary in November of 2022. While we hear about the gag rule that blocks the agency from releasing data to the public little has heard about the larger gag rule of private litigation. I now present you the story of my friend Kirsten.  No attorney believed her. Believed her and unfortunately given the lack of data and science to back it up. Not much after that child died, Kristen's husband committed suicide. After attempting to file a wrongful death claim once the science was available in the state of California, their case was tossed due to statute of limitations. I do not wish that hell on anyone yet Fisher prices actions in this case can give the commission a peak as to why incident reports are the last on a parent's grief parents to do list. My husband and I simply got lucky that we reported Ali Bell's death 65 days after her death. Before I conclude, I'd like all of us to hold a moment of silence for the victims of product hazards. For all of the Ali Bell's for all of the families that have a day they wish they did not have to experience. And for all of you who take on this life saving work. If you're an agency employee, try to remember one idea or consumer that touched you. Let's grieve together and show them the respect that they deserve every single day. Again to the commission for allowing me the opportunity to deliver these thoughts on the agendas and priorities for the coming years. Thank you. I cannot stress enough the gratitude for such an opportunity to voice my average and educated consumer thoughts. Each of you will be receiving a small paper pin to commemorate your Ali award. In the coming years, which I came up with to award to anyone who helps a product hazard victims survive or family members survive their 1st year in grief. The 1st awardee Dr. Jonathan Midget is incredible. He is simply answering my questions on procedure and there were hundreds and many of you have received those emails to help save my life. Dr. Midget. Thank you. Our youngest knows your name in his limited vocabulary. And both of our children will forever hear the fairy tale where wise wizard help their mom dad and sister in our horrific grief. Reach the group of heroes football playing commissioner who validated our family suffering and intelligence. The wise king of the village and an incredible queen who knows the power of knowing every inch of that village and the commissioner who gave their mom the ability to speak during a public meeting on October 4th 2022. Of course, our grief fairy tale would not be complete with the villages. Why is this most compassionate and long longest serving wizard that helps everyone achieve equity. Thank you eternally. Last, I asked the commission consider expanding the consumer on this ombudsman's outreach to be a team similar to that of the small business ombudsman. Each of you have helped prove that equity is possible for the victims of product hazards in death. Like Sam and I sweet Ali Bell. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Thomas from I can't imagine the pain and the difficulty that you have gone through and. Appreciate you both sharing the story and being such an advocate to prevent such tragedies from happening to others. At this point, I'm going to recognize Dr. Doddington for 10 minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can you hear me okay? I can thank you. Thank you. Excellent. Good afternoon, chairman. I want to pause and especially thank my co panelists after that presentation as a physician and specifically a pediatric emergency physician who spent at the bedside during similar tragedies. It's really deeply meaningful to hear from from parents and advocates in this context. My name is Dr. Jim Doddington. I'm a pediatric emergency physician and I serve as the medical director at the center for injury and violence prevention at Yale New Haven health. I'm also an associate professor at the Yale School of Medicine. I'm here today on behalf of the American Academy of Pediatrics with the AAP where I currently serve on the Council for Injury Violence and Poison Prevention Executive Committee. The AAP deeply appreciates the opportunity to make recommendations to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission on its agenda and priorities for 2024. The AAP strongly supports all efforts to reduce the incidence of child unintentional injury and related morbidity and mortality. CPSC has an essential public health role assuring the safety of durable infant and toddler products and toys, environmental hazards, and household dangers. And we appreciate the chance to highlight issues we urge you to prioritize for the next year. In terms of safe sleep, the AAP's evidence-based policy is clear. Infants should always sleep in their own space, on their back, on a flat and firm surface without any crib bumpers, soft bedding, or other products. Preventing sleep-related infant death is also a health equity issue, as we know there are disproportionate deaths among Black and Indigenous infants. The AAP truly values the CPSC's work over the past year to implement the Safe Sleep for Babies Act by banning crib bumpers and inclined sleepers. Both of these products are incompatible with a safe sleep environment, which puts infants at higher risk of sleep-related death. We are also grateful for enforcement actions taken by the CPSC, including re-announcing the recall of inclined sleepers, and Chairman Hon Sarek's recent letter to Mattel and Metta calling on them and emphasizing the dangers of the Fisher-Price Rock and Play infant sleepers in an attempt to keep them away from consumers. The AAP encourages the CPSC to continue its oversight and enforcement of safety standards for all sleep products. The AAP also wishes to note a concern in an area of emerging risk for infant sleep, the proliferation of weighted sleep products marketed for infants, including weighted blankets, sleepers, and swaddles. The AAP's most recent policy statement on safe sleep makes it clear that these items should not be placed on or near a sleeping infant. The CPSC needs to stay out in front of these emerging concerns so it does not become the next superfluous or ubiquitous danger to infants. In terms of liquid nicotine, liquid nicotine is a highly toxic product that poses serious risk of negative health effects for children. With widespread availability of these products nationally, the AAP remains concerned about potential exposures to children and underaged youth. It is therefore all the more important for the CPSC to continue its needed work to fully enforce the Child Nicotine Poisoning Prevention Act of 2015 to prevent liquid nicotine poisoning and to place significant emphasis on taking public action to enforce this law. In terms of furniture tip-overs, the AAP was pleased to see the Sturdy Act become law last year. We are grateful that the CPSC voted to adopt a strong voluntary rule that allows for robust and timely enforcement of the Sturdy Act. We look forward to additional progress from the CPSC towards finalizing and enforcing a robust safety standard to prevent this hazard. In terms of high-powered magnets, the AAP is grateful to the CPSC for adopting new safety standards for high-powered magnet sets, which will protect children from serious injuries or death can occur when two or more magnets are ingested. This new safety standard will go a long way towards ensuring these dangerous products do not find their way into children's hands. And we encourage the CPSC to fully enforce this new safety standard. In terms of button batteries, the AAP appreciated last year that Congress passed the AAP's backed Reese's law, which protects children against the hazard of ingestion of button cell or coin batteries by requiring the CPSC to promulgate a safety standard for this product. The AAP supports the CPSC's proposed safety standard, which will help protect children from the risk of serious injury and death from ingested button cell or coin batteries and urges the CPSC to adopt this standard expeditiously. And finally, the AAP would welcome continued opportunities to work with the CPSC to address hazards from window falls, drownings, long-term exposure hazards. ATV is in recreational off-highway vehicles, liquid laundry packets, and water beads, and any other ongoing or emerging child injury hazards. I want to thank you again for this chance to testify, and I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Doddington. We're now going to turn to questions from the commissioners. I'm going to recognize myself for 10 minutes. And first, just to thank again the whole panel for providing the testimony today. It is truly valuable comments that we will become part of our thinking as we're setting priorities for the coming year and for the work that we're doing currently. Yeah, Miss Amato, I appreciate your comments and the advocacy you've done for tipovers over the past two decades. As you said, I anticipate the standard that was grew out of the Sturdy Act to go into effect in September of this year. And I sincerely hope the manufacturers are not waiting for that date to start building safer furniture.  But there's no reason that they shouldn't be building safer products today. Also, I'm sure you're interested in collecting more data from the CPSC. You've been doing this for, as I said, a long time engaged with doctors and others. And I don't know if there's more that you want to expand upon about ways you think that we could effectively engage with the medical profession or others to be able to gather data. So, Miss Amato, additional thoughts. Thank you, Commissioner. I think that is, well, thank you for, I agree with you that the industry should not wait. And we do know that some manufacturers have already said they're shipping compliant furniture. So, you know, that's great to know. As far as the data gathering, I think partnering with the American Academy of Pediatrics and educating pediatricians and physicians on how to report that data. I know there are brochures out there specifically geared towards healthcare providers about SaferProducts.gov. We just have to get that information into their hands and get them educated how to use it. I think to medical examiners, Megan's death certificate indicated that she died from asphyxiation due to a bureau tipping over on her. But I know many other parents who, if their death certificate simply says, you know, asphyxiation or blunt head trauma and doesn't say why. So, if that's the only way an incident is reported, it's not going to get captured. So, those are a few ways I would recommend. Thank you, Miss Amato. Dr. Doddington, the CPSC and AP have had a long history together. I don't know if you have any other thoughts on how we can gauge both the organization but also with other doctors such as MEs, ER doctors and others to gather more information and make doctors more aware. Obviously, it's not the first thing on their minds or the trauma that they're treating or the patients has got to be primary, but how to encourage them to be able to report these incidents to the CPSC. No, thank you, Commissioner for this question. I think the AAP stands firm in any efforts we can make to get better data out there and better awareness of the need for reporting. Of course, as an injury prevention advocate and a pediatric emergency doctor, this is front of mind for me and for the work that I do. But there's clearly a deficit across the board in terms of particularly outside of some of these smaller circles of focus on making sure that reporting utilization of NICE and other mechanisms to make sure that we're getting data out in an expeditious way and really educating healthcare providers that they can be deeply involved in really making positive changes. I would like to mention the AAP would remain committed and would like to further engage in how we can kind of build those pathways and I would be happy to make sure that we have follow up with the CPSC on that point. Thank you. Comment to miss Joseph, your testimony actually brought back vivid memories. My oldest actually was a late term preemie and so the images of a child with connected to tubes not being able to bring home is very. Evocative for me, obviously we're working on according to our operating plan work on. Standards with respect to nursing pillows. I think that the work that is being done obviously recognize the importance of those pillows, but also recognizes that ones that aren't designed well have resulted in deaths and injuries and obviously the ones that are being used as loungers. We heard miss Thomas Ramirez testimony about the tragedies that can result so cognizant of the issues that are being raised. And ultimately this agency is focused on safety and put in making standards to be able to get out there. Save products while recognizing the deep benefits of breastfeeding as well. You know, miss Ramirez Thomas Ramirez. Your testimony was was so moving and I, you know, again cannot say how much we appreciate your engagement. A number of things in the testimony you raised to dealt with raising awareness and safer products dot gov and otherwise and, and, you know, trying to reach all communities and awareness of name of the agency is important. And if you have any other thoughts either now or later on how we can really get the information from people who are being affected, I'd be very interested. Thank you chair for me. I know that social media as we talked about with consumer Federation is a huge, huge avenue that the agency is not using or has not been catapult. Let's say that into the American home. I know that I've been advocating for safer products that gov so much that probably half of my friends stop listening to me. I had one of my friends who had a kiddo tip over on a tricycle. Recently, and she told me, you know, it was misuse. I was she was not wearing a helmet. And I'm like, well, you need to you need to still report that because of course foreseeable misuse if there's an issue with latching or that needs to be told. I know that I started an infographic with a picture of our daughter and just put a statement that said safer products save lives and just a little tidbit about what she experienced. So I think the big thing that the agency is missing is those personal anecdotes to make both industry and consumers relate to what's happening and realize that it could always happen to you. Yes, an unsafe sleep environment like what was present in our death certificate is an issue, but you know, investigators are not meant to to make that determination and are very cautious to fall to product. So I think the agency has a lot of work to do as far as potentially starting a campaign for safer products dot gov. That's a little more expansive. Thank you. I know that you mentioned it. Dr. dottington. And also you're. Recognize that he has concerns about weighted sleep sex. I was wondering if you can provide any additional details or information about that. Thank you, Mr. chair. Indeed, I would just make sure that folks would take note of it was mentioned actually in previous testimony of the policy statement on infant sleep led by Dr. Rachel moon. I'll just quote directly from the policy statement. It is recommended that weighted blankets weighted sleepers or weights not be placed on or near a sleeping infant. And additionally, no studies have documented the safety of weights for infants in an unobserved non clinical sleep environment. So the AP stands by this significant concern that this is a product that is out there and as mentioned is readily found on internet markets and other places. And that we know that an unsafe sleep environment that we should not be waiting for the deaths of further infants to then cause further concern. We should be acting as expeditiously as possible. Thank you, doctor. Also an issue raised in your testimony and we'll be hearing more from the next panel. I was talking about water beads and the impact on children. I was wondering if you could expand upon what you all are seeing in the pediatrics and emergency rooms. Thank you again. I will speak from just personal experience. It was actually interesting just in the last week on a clinical shift. I encountered a 3 or 4 year old who had ingested water beads and this prompted me. This is 1 of a few visits. I am 1 of multiple faculty at my institution. Just to say how real this is in terms of the ubiquitousness of these beads both found in, in kind of squish ball products in play areas. And something that I think is definitely heightening our awareness. I discussed this case with our local poison control center as well as other colleagues in toxicology. And of course, expanding and preparing for this meeting. I think we're absolutely concerned for a few mechanisms and I know we'll hear about this in the next panel. Both the possibility of intestinal obstruction so that the children can actually have obstruction, which of course is a surgical emergency. The possibility of aspiration in which that these, these water beads could be lodged in a lung. And or the possibility of toxicity associated with these water beads. I do not yet have an official comment on that side of things, but we are interested in hoping to see more in research, particularly in partnership with our toxicologist and environmental health folks from the AP on that. Thank you. I appreciate that. I know that I am out of time. So I'm going to turn to my colleagues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you again to all of our panelists today for their testimony. Again, this is this is helpful testimony that drives our work and informs our priorities to miss Thomas Romero. I can only say that I'm sorry for your loss. But I am glad that you're here and want to thank you for your advocacy and for the powerful testimony that you offered today. I also want to offer a special recognition to miss a motto for her work on sturdy. The commission's recent action approving a strong mandatory standard that the parents against tip over help write is a direct result of her tireless advocacy over the years. We've had a relationship that goes back to my very first days at the commission. And and miss a motto, you are a good example to others about how advocates can shape tragedy into positive change. I'm optimistic that with this strong rule in place, we will help others avoid similar tragedies in the future and that the parents of against tip overs and the families that are your members may may find solace in that. Of course, there's nothing that we can do that will ever repair the loss that your family endured. But I'm optimistic for the future. Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions, but but again, thank you for all the work and advocacy that that all of you are bringing to today's proceedings. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner Feldman, Commissioner Trumka. Thank you to this panel. You know, I know that our expert staff here at CPSC is going to take what you brought to us and run with it and it's going to make a difference. Miss Thomas Romero, I'm so happy that you're here with us today. I really appreciate you making this trip. You know, it's inspirational to see how you've channeled your grief into becoming such a powerful messenger. And it's going to drive change. And I thank you for it.  But it made all the difference in terms of us understanding what we need to do. So thank you. And I think your powerful words have opened many people's eyes to the hazards posed by infant loungers and those types of products. And I know that this agency has much more work to do on that front, but you should know that infant loungers and other products remain top of mind for me and my staff and for many people here. And I think you also helped us understand how many people in the public see our agency, which is to say that they might not even know we exist. And we can change that and put ourselves in a position to help people by working more closely with consumers like you. So I also wanted to touch on your idea to honor the victims of product hazards that we've talked about before with a dedicated space that we have online. I think it's an excellent example of something that we absolutely could do and should do to improve our engagement with consumers and also honor the lives of those that we weren't able to save and families as well. You've got my support on that and let's work towards that. Beyond that, we need to honor victims by taking strong action to protect infants from hazardous products, particularly when we have evidence and recommendations from medical professionals urging us to do that. I will ask you just just one simple question, you know, very well that that we put out a notice of violation on DACA Todd and that those products are not being sold. The deluxe plus isn't being sold going forward. But a lot of those products are still in homes. Have we done enough. Do we need to do more. I would say, you know, in my first week after Ali died, we had eight friends throw away theirs. So the agents biggest allies are parents and other consumers. I know as of this morning, they are still being sold given that's probably the stock that was left over. But that sits very heavy on my heart that I see products Ali passed away, not in the infant model, the larger one. And so, knowing that those are continuously being sold and will be classified as loungers, I have to say that is heartbreaking. If you look at our warnings, you would see that there was no misuse because unfortunately our warnings were not clear. They said approximate use approximate age and both of them were still for sleep. So I think the commission doesn't have anything else to do. I think it's industry. Like I told them last week, you know, financially even this does not make sense to continue to make unsafe products because of course those civil penalties are in private litigation are huge. You know, my state caps it at 250 but other states are no wrongful death cap like where that firm was operating prior. So I think the, I might be the odd one out, but I don't think the, the, the guilt or any of that duty is on you all. I think it's on industry. I think it's on JPMA. I think it's on all of the people who are choosing to enter the market because they are profiting off for our, our healthy children. But of course, once the child dies, it's very quickly shunned away as an unsafe sleep environment or consumer misuse. And at the end of the day, I know I hear consistently there's education lacking of unsafe sleep environment, but that's not the duty of the commission. That's the duty of the products that are coming onto the market and inadequate warnings at the end of the day if they are not taking on these campaigns to actually inform consumers in the language they speak in my opinion. I appreciate that. But I would encourage you not to let us off the hook so easily. There's more we can do. Dr. Donington, I was hoping that you could provide some context here on the safety side as well. And Congress passed the Safe Sleep for Babies Act, as you mentioned last year, which banned inclined sleep products that are intended marketed or designed to fit a sleeping baby. But CPSC still needs to issue a regulation implementing that ban so that companies know what's not okay. Are there types of inclined products on the market that raise concerns for you from a safe sleep perspective because of their design? And are you still seeing incidents? Thank you, Commissioner Trumka for this question. Absolutely there are concerns as we discussed in this panel and when we and AP has discussed in other forums. In terms of very specific products, I'm not going to be able to give you the exact piece there. But in terms of the design elements, we do want to emphasize that a flat sleep surface in relation to the horizon. Is crucially important in this context and that the AP supports the strongest possible rule that can be properly enforced in a timely matter to protect the health and well-being of children. This is going to encompass, I'm sure, a number of products that are going to be in question and one would continue to partner with the CPSC as these issues emerge and where our sleep safety experts can comment directly on products to your commission and other leaders. Okay. And you also mentioned the weighted sleep sacks and swaddle products like that. And in response to Chairman Hohenzarek, you mentioned that there are the advice that you pointed out there and also that there are concerns as to the hazard. I don't know if you mentioned utility, but I think that AP has mentioned a lack of utility of these products as well in the past. Is that right? Indeed, a concern has been raised. And again, Dr. Moon has mentioned this that there is not a clear benefit and a clear risk. And I think that needs to be mentioned directly. I think when we have that combination of things, it might not even be worth our time to be engaged in voluntary standards discussions on products that lack utility and do pose a hazard. And I know that, let's see, one other thing that I wanted to point out, and we heard from the nonprofit group, Love for Lily, which certainly has a laudable mission. And I guess I didn't realize this, Alex, but much like you, we also spent some time in the NICU when my daughter was born and I know how lonely a place that can be and nobody wants to be there. So to know that there's folks out there providing comfort is fantastic. So thank you for the work you're doing in that space. I do need to point out that the group is also engaged in a corporate partnership though with BOPI, which sells the C-shaped nursing pillows, the type that are being promoted in the testimony. And that's the same BOPI that previously sold millions of lounger pillows that were tied to eight infant deaths before they were recalled. And we heard from a company called SimplyFed, which is soliciting brand partners, but doesn't disclose those brand partners on the website. And in the future, I think I'd urge witnesses, and I've heard a couple of witnesses proactively do this today, which is great, put that kind of information out in the record as to where funding and partnerships lay, particularly with anyone whose organization might be getting support from a company with business before the commission. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Boyle. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Thomas Romero, I don't have any other words to add to what has already been said, but just know how important your appearance here today is and how impactful it will be. In another context, I heard a preacher talk about turning pain into power. And that is what you're doing. And you have certainly a path that has been set by Ms. Amato and other parents like yourself. It's a sad path, but a path that does have results ultimately. And so I thank you for all that you've done. I don't have anything else, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner. And thank you again to all the panelists for being here today. Appreciate you taking the time to speak with us this morning and look forward to continuing that. At this point in time, I'm going to introduce the fourth panel and the final panel. We'll be hearing from three mothers who has witnessed the dangers of water beads firsthand. I want to thank all of you again for taking time to share your children's stories and the thoughts that you have for the agency's activities. The three witnesses are Ashley Haugen, Felicia Mitchell, and Sarah Ghent, who are here to speak about the dangers of water beads. So thank you all and Ms. Haugen, I can recognize you for 10 minutes. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. It is my sincere hope that the esteemed consumer product safety commission will consider adding water beads to its agenda for the upcoming physical years of 2024 and 2025. I'm also requesting the commission bolster its staff by appointing an occupational environmental medicine physician. My motivation for requesting an occupational and environmental medicine physician be added to the CPSC staff and that water beads be added to the 2024 and 2025 agendas stems from my commitment to fulfilling the promise I made to my daughter. To keep her friends safe from the harmful effects of water beads in order to achieve this goal and the most effective way possible. I need your help. The contributions of pharmacologists and PhD toxicologist to your agency are undoubtedly valuable. I strongly recommend that you consider the addition of an occupational environmental medicine physician to your team. As they possess expertise and identifying and evaluating a broad range of hazardous situations, such as chemical exposures, biological agents and physical hazards, and would offer a distinctive and vital perspective in the assessment of potential hazards associated with toys and other consumer products. I firmly believe that this addition would enhance the effectiveness and overall success of your agency's efforts in safeguarding public health and safety. The expertise of occupational environmental medicine physicians on the CPSC's team would be highly beneficial in identifying potential poisoning diagnoses related to consumer products. This is especially relevant since most physicians lack adequate formal training in OEM and exposure sciences. Which can result in overlooked diagnoses and missed opportunities for preventative and advocacy action. Moreover, an OEM physician could help to improve the CPSC's risk assessment hazard evaluation compliance and investigation processes. When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be an effective measure. There's an insistence for and reliance by parents to look for non-toxic labels on toy products. The original intent behind professionals giving this advice was to assist caregivers in starting their toy purchasing research. Unfortunately, it became a stopping point, a false beacon of product safety, as it is an insufficient and unregulated term used to make critical decisions that can forever impact the trajectory of a child's life. As a result of this shift, medical professionals, researchers and parents can find themselves in alarming situations. In July of 2017, my daughter Kipley woke up projectile vomiting. She couldn't keep anything down. The next day she was rushed into emergency exploratory surgery. I remember sitting in the waiting room covered in my girl's vomit praying that I hadn't just held my baby alive for the last time. There is nothing that can prepare a parent for the heartbreak of learning their child's suffering was caused by a preventable consumer product injury. When the surgeon showed us the picture of what he had pulled from Kipley's small intestine, we immediately recognized it as water beads, the birthday gift we had given our six-year-old daughter back in April. Kipley wasn't allowed to play with the water beads. The girls had separate play areas. We used adult supervision and we researched the product. My husband and I were shocked because we did everything right to keep our daughter safe, and she still got hurt. I distinctly recall the surgeon's audible gasp, sigh of relief, as he read online that the water beads were labeled as non-toxic. I also remember the numerous dismissive comments of Kipley's original pediatrician when I expressed concerns about her mental state and behavior after her hospitalization when we had brought her home, and this still haunts me. He outright refused to report the product to the CPSC and insisted that non-toxic labeled toys couldn't poison children. He even went so far as to claim that water beads were an appropriate toy as long as parents provided proper adult supervision. In October of 2017, Kipley's developmental pediatrician diagnosed her with toxic brain encephalopathy. Six years later, she is still receiving therapy both privately and through her school. I'll never forget the defeated expression on her gastroenterologist's face when he revealed the severe irritation he found along her gastrointestinal tract months after her surgery. The sadness in his eyes as he informed me that when he reached out to poison control about acrylamide monomer poisoning, they had no suggestions to offer him regarding how to help her because her situation was no longer acute but chronic. When Kipley was around four years old, we were at the store one day casually walking down the aisle when we stumbled upon a mother with a younger toddler in her cart. As I turned a glance at them, I noticed the mother had a package of water beads in her hand. I looked down at Kipley. Her big bright brown eyes were wide with fear. She was so scared. But with her tiny trembling voice, she uttered two words that carried immense weight. Friend, safe? We've been trying to keep as many friends safe as we can, but we need more help. The term non-toxic creates a dangerous misconception that a product is inherently safe for children. Overreliance on unregulated terms leads to a false sense of security for both physicians and consumers. The truth is that companies are not required to provide evidence or documentation to back up their claims of non-toxicity. This means that without any external verification or oversight, a product has been labeled non-toxic may still pose a threat to a child's health and well-being. The media, government agencies, and even the medical community can unintentionally exasperate this issue by promoting industry-friendly narratives that downplay the risks associated with certain products like water beads. Healthcare providers may overlook patient symptoms because the patient's history contradicts their perceived notion and firmly held belief about the safety and usefulness of the product, leading to cognitive dissidents. This discomfort can result in healthcare providers ignoring, dismissing, or even arguing against their patient's lived experience and clear symptoms of harm. The constant emphasis on the need for adult supervision and proper cleanup can also reinforce the idea that injuries resulting from product use are solely the fault of caregivers, obscuring the fact that companies have a crucial role to play in designing and manufacturing safe products. Despite the advice given to parents to prevent water bead injuries through adult supervision, cleaning up the beads, and limiting their use to older children, our own experience has shown that such measures are insufficient in protecting children. Merely recommending that parents take the same actions my family did will not suffice in mitigating the grave risks of injury and even death associated with water beads. The truth is that water beads are not toys and having them in the home puts children and pets at risk. While we can all agree that adult supervision is essential, depending on it as the sole layer of protection against childhood consumer product injury is like using a single soldier to guard a castle against a siege. It is not enough. Multiple layers of protection are needed to guard against the hazards children can face participating in play, the occupation of childhood. It is not just the responsibility of parents to keep them safe. Companies must step up and prioritize safety in their product design, the quality of their manufacture. Because the reality is accidents happen. And in those moments, the design and composition of a product can make the critical difference between a minor mishap. And a major tragedy. I'm going to go a little bit off of script here to let you guys know that during the course of this meeting that we have had today, I have received a message from a mom whose child is currently in the hospital after he ingested water beads. He is only five months old and he's already had one surgery and the doctors are telling his mom currently that they think that there might be another one inside of him, but that they aren't sure how to proceed. Do they do another surgery, or do they wait and see if it will pass on its own, even though this baby is clearly showing signs of being obstructed again. There is not enough information on water beads. There is not enough information on water beads that physicians have access to slash will take in the moment when they when they need it. It's a critical moment. The only way honestly that this mom could have prevented what happened to her child is to not have them in the home in the first place. And families are not being warned about the full risks that water beads pose to children. And they need to be. And I need your help to make that happen. I'm going to yield the rest of my time to my fellow panel members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you Miss. Thank you for sharing the stories, your story and your daughter's story as well. Miss Mitchell recognize you. Thanks for letting me speak today and I hope everybody can bear with me because I'm pretty nervous. I'm going to talk about what happened to my daughter Kennedy with water beads. On November 1 of 2022, my daughter Kennedy was nine months at the time and her life and our lives changed forever. I thought for a few days Kennedy was feeling under the weather maybe normal illness but over the weekend the illness never got better and it only got worse. She became lethargic and couldn't eat without vomiting. So we brought her to the hospital. She had no fever and she was not screaming out in pain. She had no wrasse rash and no outside physical injuries. And upon arriving at the hospital, the doctors and nurses could see how ill my infant was. Shortly after we arrived, she started to spit up brown and still without understanding what was wrong or what was happening. We were rushed to the best hospital in the area, which was main medical center in Portland, Maine. And once we got to the bigger hospital, my daughter became violently ill and started vomiting what I now understand was bile. The doctors knew something was seriously wrong, but we still didn't know what they rushed her to ultrasound immediately because bile points to an obstruction and that my daughter had one circular shaped object lodged within her small intestine. They asked if we had anything small in the home like marbles and I responded no we didn't. Feeling so confused and concerned the only thing that I could think of that was small and round was the water beads that I had just purchased for my oldest son who is on the spectrum. And at the time was eight years old. We were very scared and worried because she had not been within the play area set for my eight year old. In fact, we had some water beads in a medium sized container with a lid so that they could be cleaned up and snapped closed and put away for safekeeping. None of the pediatric surgeons doctors or nurses had even heard of water beads, which made helping Kennedy that much harder. I had to bring some of the product in a baggie for the doctors and they gained a lot of helpful information from Ashley's website that water bead lady.org They had to rush Kennedy to emergency surgery. They were able to remove the one water bead that was in her body but she didn't get better in fact she got much worse. She became septic only hours after her surgery and almost passed away and surgery recovery. Dr. Bush ICU unit had to come down to assess her and within two minutes I was running across the hospital chasing them because they were trying to save her life. She was taken into a second surgery to make sure there was no more water beads and that nothing went wrong with the first surgery because she should have been better. And no more water beads were found and the surgery was done perfectly correct. And again, this was all from one water bead. She was put on a ventilator once we got to the ICU and kept sedated as her body went into a DIC state, which is rare, but serious. And it's a condition that causes abnormal blood clotting throughout the body. Body vessels and she started third spacing which I was told means that all of her vessels all around her body and her eyelids and all over her body was leaking just into her tissue and into her body where it's not supposed to be. These are three separate and deadly conditions from the one water bead that they found in her body. She, the pediatric surgeons could not explain why she was suffering from all these different conditions. Three different deadly conditions she was fighting against because of one water bead that was stuck in her small intestine. In the next couple of days my baby swelled to three to four times her real size and the doctors told me again her vessels were still leaking and they were trying to make it stop, but they weren't sure if they'd be able to get it out of under control. Within the next few days Kennedy became so swollen and sick, her organs became suffocated by the fluid that was leaking in her body. She had two different bacterias within her abdomen and also a yeast that was causing an infection. For days each hour that she made it was a miracle and we held on to that. She was on eight different medications and a ventilator to keep her going through this. The pressure within her body was so intense the doctors tried a procedure for a different illness and hopes it would save her life and a silo bag was placed to create space to relieve the pressure. We hoped Kennedy would make it through the surgery and that the space would give her body time to try and heal.  She made it out of the third surgery and the silo bag immediately started to relieve the pressure off of her organs. Days later they hope to close the abdomen and remove the bag but when they entered her little body for the fourth time. They found two places in the small intestine that the bowel was dead. And actually corroded was the word used to describe the bowel where the water bead was stuck by the surgeons and another portion completely dead in total of 15 centimeters. Had to be removed from her small intestines at nine months old. She was told by the anesthesiologist the hospital was having a meeting about what to do in this situation because they didn't know what to expect or how to handle the water bead injury. And they felt they could have helped Kennedy sooner had they had that information. She was not closed that day but the 15 centimeters was removed and a few days later a small intestine was reattached and the silo bag was removed and hoping her body was strong enough to fight the infection. All of this was from one just one single water bead just one water beads come in packs of tens and thousands smaller than a pinhead. Going over the moments in my head and the days leading up to her admission to the hospital I did my very best to keep her and the rest of my children safe as I always do. So just four weeks in the hospital Kennedy would not take a bottle and the conclusion was she had a bottle of version. She came home with an ng tube that went through her nose and into her stomach. So she could receive fluids and physical therapy to help her crawl again. This lasted for weeks and after many attempts with different bottles and sippy cups. She had to take her to slowly decide to take a drink again. She is little, but remember the pain and the trauma. That's why she didn't want to take her drink. Kennedy is 16 months old now. And she's still working on walking, partly because she spent a big important developmental time for a whole month laid in bed. She will need physical therapy again if she's not walking by the time she's a year and a half. These water bead products had no warning for this. I had absolutely no idea that it could cause so much damage to a child. They had no sense of danger having the product or even bringing Kennedy to the hospital, the first hospital. It never came to me that I should be worried that this was the problem. And I didn't get to make an informed choice when purchasing them because no one is really protecting the children against water beads. They were generally used for agriculture, but now they've made their way into the toy aisle. Schools and daycares. I made the mistake of buying them for my son on the spectrum and it nearly cost my daughter her life. I hope that water beads can become a top priority for the CPSC because we are counting on you to start taking a very serious look at the product that we put on the shelves and are advertising as sensory play and non toxic. Our children, my daughter Kennedy is physical proof of the potential that water beads have that nobody's really looking at. So, thank you for listening. Thank you, Miss Mitchell greatly appreciate you chair sharing your story. Miss skint. You church. All right. Um, can you guys see me? Okay. Yes. Okay. Thank you for having me. First of all, my name is Sarah Gent and I have a little girl and a son named Henry who is a year and a half old. Again, forgive me if I'm nervous. This is really hard to talk about. I'm here today to share our story and ask that you please consider the banning of water beads. Just to reiterate what they are, they are toy geared towards toddlers and young children for sensory play. They are sold impacts of 50,000 plus and they are the size of sprinkles. I actually have one here that I just wanted to show you guys so you can get a sense for how small they are. And when they are placed in water or in some cases bodily fluids, they can expand up to two inches. Sunday morning, December 11th, my family and I got up early to head to my daughter's preschool Christmas performance. We were all so excited for her. However, when my son woke up, I could tell something was off with him.  I thought maybe he just had an upset stomach. So we proceeded to go to the performance. But a few minutes in, he went from perky but spitting up to completely lethargic and puking some sort of brown substance. We decided we needed to leave my daughter's shell and go to the hospital. Two minutes into the drive, the brown goo turned into bright red blood. We were terrified and we prayed and cried over him the whole way to the hospital. Upon arrival at the ER, everyone who saw him knew it was serious and we were taken right up to a room. We were put there as they discussed if maybe the blood was from my breast milk or if he had some sort of virus. But he became so lethargic at that point that he didn't even open his eyes when he puked up the first water bead. I saw it in my heart sank to my feet. I knew what it was right away. I had just watched Felicia's video actually about a week before about the dangers of water beads and we had gone home and thrown all of them away that we could find. But I knew in that instant he must have found some somewhere and that this was a life-or-death situation. They didn't x-ray and saw no more, but when he puked two more up even after the clear x-ray, we all knew he needed to be transferred to a more equipped hospital.  I had to ride in the front as it took us full lights and sirens 90 minutes away to a new hospital. Being away from him in that time was inconceivably painful. He was taken directly from the ambulance to an ultrasound and then they put him under to do a fully intubated scope. Once again, they found no more water beads.  After he was woken up from the scope, you would have expected him to get better since there were apparently no more beads, but he didn't. For the next 30 hours, he got worse and worse and worse. They did two more x-rays, both negative for more beads. So they truly believed at that point that he must just still have an upset stomach from the whole ordeal. A scope, three x-rays and an ultrasound are really hard to disagree with, but I knew. He was projectile vomiting large, large puddles of blood at least every 30 minutes. He was so pale that you could see the veins in his skin as lips were blue. He couldn't even hold his head up. He wasn't even waking up to throw up anymore. He was sleeping through it. I was holding my son knowing full well that he was dying in my arms. Another ultrasound was done and there was nothing obvious on it, but given the state of my son, exploratory surgery became our only option. Shortly after he became, he began vomiting fecal matter and his stomach turned rocked hard. His surgeon saw this rapid decline and he was taken back pretty much immediately at that point. The plan was to do a minimally invasive surgery through his belly button, but once getting him back there, it was clear it was more serious than that. They said his bowels were swollen and red and angry.  The bead that had eluded the scope and was invisible on all of those tests and x-rays had grown to close to two inches across and was completely obstructing his bowels. This is a life-threatening injury. Though they saved his life, Henry now lives with a large scar across his belly and scar tissue that could put him at risk of blockages for the rest of his entire life. He has to take supplements every day just to help him have regular bowel movements, definitely. We're so grateful he's here with us today, but we also know it was almost a very different outcome. We took the precautions, we checked toys before buying them. Our water beads had no real warning labels and actually were labeled as both safe and non-toxic. They were bought for an age-appropriate child, our daughter, and our son had constant supervision, yet still. One of the main problems with water beads is that they bounce and roll under furniture and then shrink back down to the size of sprinkles until they come in to contact the fluid again. So when you have a bag of 50,000 of them, it's near impossible to keep track of every single one. They're also very sticky. We believe the ones that he ingested were actually stuck in the fur of his favorite levy he sleeps with every night. After the hospital, we had three people come over and help completely empty out our entire playroom and search by hand every single toy, baseboard, and piece of furniture before putting them back in the playroom. In totality, we found over 50, stuck inside Hot Wheels car wheels, a Lego, a crack in the table under a baseboard. Even now, four months later, I just found three more in the hinges of a toy that three people checked. They're still terrorizing our family. My baby boy just had a stomach bug and the PTSD from the whole situation was crippling. I live in constant fear and anxiety that he's going to find another one that him throwing up is a sign that he found one we're going to lose him this time. I can't even see a stomach bug is just a stomach bug anymore. And Henry's is not the only story. I've had dozens of families reach out to me with stories exactly like his or to tell me that they are nurses that have been treating so many serious water bead cases lately. It wasn't a freak accident. It's happening.  Ever. So please consider putting water beads on your 2024 agenda. Thank you. Thank you miss miss gent. I'm going to turn to questions and the commissioners and honestly, I don't have questions of you, but I will say that we are I hear you. And the stories you tell are extremely compelling. And I know that cannot be easy, but it's so important to be able to talk to us and share those stories. So thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Miss Hogan, Miss Mitchell, Miss Gent. Gent, excuse me. Thank you for the testimony delivered today. I want to thank all of our presenters on this panel and the ones that preceded you for being here today. I know that it can be emotional and difficult for many of our presenters. The things that you're sharing with us today are gut wrenching. They're personal. They're real. And they're painful to talk about. But the issues affecting safety and health of our children can be especially difficult to grapple with. And I do truly appreciate you being here today to share your perspective, your experience and the expertise that you've developed along the way. It's a necessary reality of serving on a commission like this that many of the things that we deal with only land on our plates. And the commission's radar, once there's been a tragedy, we can do our best to act quickly and to prevent more incidents to keep people safe. But sadly, we often don't know that there's a problem until someone's landed in the emergency room or worse. You guys are an invaluable part of the process of helping us try to anticipate problems and to craft the best solutions that we can. And as we're working to set the commission's priorities for the next two years, I know that my own efforts will owe a great deal to the comments that you've offered today and for your continued guidance. But I do look forward to working with everybody going forward. And again, thank you for the testimony that you've offered today. It is beyond useful. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Trump. Ms. Haugen, Ms. Mitchell, Ms. Jen, thank you. You know, it takes a tremendous amount of courage to come up here and present the most horrifying tragedies of your lives to the public. But you did it. And I'm grateful for your bravery in coming here to share your stories and in your call for change to help make the world safer for others. You should know that it matters. I hope you're hearing that from everyone on this panel right now. I hope that's landing because your words are going to spur action. And this is going to protect kids in the future. CPSC's next operating plan, as you suggested, should address your recommendations. If it doesn't, you can expect me to offer an amendment to add water beads to the commission's agenda in the upcoming operating plan and to make sure that we have the right staff in place to take care of the problem. So you can tell Kipling that there are people out here who want to take her advice and keep all friends safe. Thank you. Commissioner Maul. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to all of you for speaking today. I obviously share the sentiments of my colleagues here. I'm a mother of three children and it's very hard to hear your pain, but know how much I appreciate the courage that you do exhibit today. There is, I think a common theme among you, though, that I would just kind of like to underscore, and that's about blaming parents and blaming the consumer. And I just would like to quote actually from Ms. Haugen's testimony, but I think it applies to all of you today and to our prior panelists. She writes, the constant emphasis on the need for adult supervision can also reinforce the idea that injuries resulting from product use are solely the fault of the caregiver obscuring the fact that companies have a crucial role to play in designing and manufacturing safe products. I think that's just such an important point to make and I want to underscore it today and I am committing to keeping you in my heart as I go forward in making the policy decisions that come before us. And I again, thank you for your courage. Thank you. And thanks to all the witnesses who testified for us today. The individuals and groups have submitted written statements for the record. We've a lot of work to do in the upcoming years and I appreciate all the feedback and thoughtful commentary that will inform the work that we do. I also want to thank Elaine is wiki as well as Pam stone and the office of general counsel for standing in for the commission secretary and supporting this hearing as well as the comm comms department as well for putting together the hearing. And with that this hearing is adjourned.


Well, for 100 years, Girl Scout cookies have been a staple. Cookie sellers at Bemidji Middle School got the chance to polish up on their skills and prepare for cookie season tonight. Haiti Clotter has the story. Since I was a kid, I wanted to be in Girl Scouts. Young Girl Scouts took a course in the Girl Scouts Cookie University at Bemidji Middle School. Once enrolled, the girls learned skills for the cookie program that focus on selling, money management and business ethics. They can take those skills back to their troop or back to their home wherever they originate with their cookies selling and they can apply that to their selling cookie business. Girl Scouts Cookie University teaches the girls their very own entrepreneur skills. They learn how to run a cookie business so they can be successful and techniques to make that sale. This also empowers the girls to reach their goals. For example, if they sell enough cookies, they can attend camp or ride a horse. Some of them already have a sales pitch ready. Hi, would you like to sell cookies? My name is Sophia. I'm a Girl Scout. The top selling cookies are Caramel Delights, Peanut Butter Patties and the favorite of the night. The Thin Mint. Thin Mint. The girls also learned that there's more to being a Girl Scout than Thin Mints and Lemon Cookies. Being a Girl Scout all is about having fun. You need to work. Yeah. I know it takes a lot of work but being a Girl Scout is just helping my community and everybody in it. The most important lesson of the day was to always have fun. In Bemidji, Haiti Clotter, Lakeland News. Each girl that attended the Cookie University received a patch. All the girls from Northern Minnesota, most of them are from Bemidji. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


I decided to be an engineer, one because I was good at math, and I love science. And two, as I got into engineering, I really enjoyed solving hard problems. Purdue prepared me for my engineering career through really tremendously rigorous coursework and very supportive faculty. Some highlights from Purdue were the super interesting projects that we got to work on. I worked on an independent study with Professor Easter on how to model a solid rocket motor. We got to write a paper on it and went into a student competition, and it was just a great experience. One of the organizations that I was involved in at Purdue was the Society of Women Engineers. It was a great opportunity to see other women actually performing engineering and they could come back and talk to us about the experience. So when I was at Purdue, I did a co-op that allowed me five separate times to go to NASA Johnson Space Center and learn about the different aspects of engineering. By the time I got done, I had a pretty clear direction on what I wanted to do with my degree as well as I got my first job, and it was just a great way to hit the ground running. Advice that I have for future Purdue engineering students is to have patience. There's so much to learn. Enjoy learning it and just keep your head up looking around for all those opportunities because at Purdue, you'll find them. We have tons of challenges in aerospace engineering that we're trying to solve and I need a lot of good people. So if you're interested in math and science, Purdue engineering is what you should do. My first small step was getting a co-op at NASA Johnson Space Center. My second small step was leaving NASA and joining a small business in commercial space. My third small step was joining Blue Origin, a larger commercial space company. The giant leap was honestly coming to Purdue. I distinctly remember the first moment when I said to myself, I can do this. I can be a aerospace engineer. I'm Kristi Akamini. I received my bachelor's in Astronautics and Aeronautics in 1993 and I'm a Purdue engineer.