Sunday, April 26, 2015


Another Medical Kidnapping at Boston Children’s Hospital:
Baby Seized over Formula Disagreement Posted on April 25, 2015 Written by healthimpactnews.com
It is an all-too-familiar cas­cade of events that hap­pens all across the world, but for baby Bella’s fam­ily, their fairly typ­i­cal sce­nario has resulted in their baby being taken from her lov­ing par­ents. Now Mass­a­chu­setts DCF wants to adopt this beau­ti­ful baby out, per­ma­nently sev­er­ing Christina and Jonathon Hinote’s parental rights to their daugh­ter, who wasn’t even born in Mass­a­chu­setts. As reported by A Mir­a­cle for US, the fam­ily is devastated.
The cou­ple were in the process of relo­cat­ing from their home in Mass­a­chu­setts to Alabama, to be near Jonathon’s fam­ily. Com­pli­ca­tions from the preg­nancy made it nec­es­sary for them to stay where they were in Alabama. Annabella Grace made her appear­ance 6 weeks early, on Jan­u­ary 17, 2014, near Mobile, Alabama.
Because she was pre­ma­ture, she spent time in the NICU. Like many moms, Christina tried to pump her breast­milk to be given to Bella. This sce­nario is chal­leng­ing at best, and through no fault of their own, many moth­ers find it dif­fi­cult to develop an ade­quate milk sup­ply, and switch to for­mula feed­ing. How­ever, Bella had a severe case of reflux from the beginning.
For her first 72 hours of life, she was unable to hold down any flu­ids, and was fed intra­venously. After dis­charge from the NICU, the quest to find the right for­mula that Bella could keep down con­tin­ued. There were sev­eral hos­pi­tal­iza­tions due to the sever­ity of the reflux. They finally found that Bella could tol­er­ate Sim­i­lac Total Com­fort, and she began gain­ing weight. They took baby Bella home in Alabama.
Mean­while, the Hinotes trav­eled back home to Mass­a­chu­setts to get more of their belong­ings and spend some time with Christina’s fam­ily. They could not find the for­mula there that Bella was thriv­ing on, and thus switched to Gen­tlease, which she was also able to tol­er­ate. Then, they vis­ited the WIC office and a pedi­a­tri­cian in Mass­a­chu­setts who decided to switch to Nutrami­gen for­mula. He told them that the other for­mula could upset her GI tract and con­sti­pate her. This change resulted in an increase in the reflux, as well as a “great decline” in her weight.

Med­ical Arro­gance and False Accusations

When Bella’s par­ents pleaded with the pedi­a­tri­cian to switch her back to the Gen­tlease, he refused. He allegedly told them that “he was the one who held a med­ical degree, and she was a first-time mother.” How­ever, Bella con­tin­ued to decline.
The Hinotes didn’t know that the doc­tor had con­tacted DCF, allegedly say­ing that he had grave con­cerns about Bella’s weight. It would later come out that he told DCF that he believed that the par­ents meant well, but were sim­ply “not feed­ing their child,” leav­ing out the part about his actions in pre­scrib­ing a for­mula she couldn’t tolerate.
The cou­ple were also hav­ing prob­lems with neigh­bors in their com­plex. They later found out that the neigh­bors had filed false reports against them, accus­ing them of hav­ing 4 dogs, 6 cats, and ani­mal feces all over the house. The Hinotes had no pets at the time. They also made an alle­ga­tion that Christina would leave her baby for weeks at a time – an accu­sa­tion which the Hinotes say they were eas­ily able to prove false.

Back to Sweet Home Alabama

Not sur­pris­ingly, Christina and Jonathon decided to com­plete the relo­ca­tion to Alabama, where they had the sup­port of Jon’s par­ents, as well as a pedi­a­tri­cian will­ing to pre­scribe a for­mula that Bella could tolerate.
But Mass­a­chu­setts DCF decided to chase them down.
They allegedly con­tacted Alabama DHR to check on the fam­ily. A social worker came out and saw a baby who was grow­ing and cleared the Alabama home in a home study.
Unsat­is­fied, Kel­lie Per­rault, an inves­ti­ga­tor for Mass­a­chu­setts DCF, con­tacted the Hinotes, stat­ing that they were con­cerned about Bella’s declin­ing weight. Despite the fact that they were almost 1500 miles away, the inves­ti­ga­tor demanded that they meet with her to “clear the air.” Using a tac­tic that tends to be quite effec­tive with inno­cent peo­ple, she insisted that “if they have noth­ing to hide,” they should have no prob­lem meet­ing with her.
She then allegedly threat­ened them, say­ing that if they refused to meet, crim­i­nal charges would be filed against them.
The fright­ened par­ents felt that they had no choice, and made the long trek back to Massachusetts.

Case­worker and Hos­pi­tal Clear Bella

While Bella was left in the care of Christina’s mother, Christina and Jonathon met with the inves­ti­ga­tor in a dif­fer­ent county. A Salem case­worker was sent to “put eyes on the baby.” The case­worker rec­om­mended that the case be closed and stated her find­ings to fam­ily members:
“Bella is under­stand­ably small due to pre­ma­tu­rity, but her color is good and there is no con­cern for her well-being.”
This was appar­ently not good enough for Per­rault, who then demanded that Bella be brought to the emer­gency room for med­ical clear­ance. They took her to Bev­erly Hos­pi­tal, where the for­mula was switched back to Gen­tlease, and switched from Zan­tac to Prilosec for the reflux, result­ing in imme­di­ate improve­ment. Tests were per­formed, and the diag­no­sis was Fail­ure to Thrive due to lack of calo­ries. She gained 3 ounces in the first 24 hours after switch­ing back to the for­mula that she could tol­er­ate, and she was med­ically cleared by Bev­erly Hospital.

DCF Demands Trans­fer to Boston Children’s Hospital

Unde­terred by the good reports, DCF demanded that Bella be trans­ferred to Boston Children’s Hos­pi­tal for “fur­ther test­ing,” instead of discharge.
When the par­ents requested Tufts hos­pi­tal instead, they were again threat­ened with removal if they did not com­ply with the DCF demands. Bella was sent to Boston Children’s Hos­pi­tal, the same hos­pi­tal that was hold­ing Justina Pel­letier at the time. (See: Boston Hos­pi­tal Seizes 15 Year Old From Par­ents Over Med­ical Treat­ment Dis­agree­ment.)

Unrea­son­able Demands and Sleep Deprivation

It was a new hos­pi­tal with a new plan, one which appears to be designed for fail­ure. Though other fam­ily mem­bers were allowed to visit, Christina was to be exclu­sively respon­si­ble for all of Bella’s care. No one else was even allowed to touch or pick up their tini­est fam­ily member.
Bella was on a strict feed­ing sched­ule of round-the-clock feed­ings every three hours. The for­mula was not left in the room, but had to be pre­pared in a “milk lab.” She was to have her dia­per changed before and after every feed­ing. After each feed­ing and burp, Christina was instructed to place Bella upright in the bassinet, and left still, because of the reflux. She was not allowed to play with her or have phys­i­cal con­tact dur­ing that hour, so that she wouldn’t vomit. Nat­u­rally, Bella would fall asleep dur­ing this time.
This gru­el­ing sched­ule made sleep for Christina very dif­fi­cult. She couldn’t leave the room to shower or get food. She ended up often eat­ing only once a day. Dur­ing one 48 hour period, she drank 17 cups of cof­fee and got no sleep in her attempt to fully com­ply with the hos­pi­tal demands.
Play­time was very lim­ited, due to the require­ments of the sched­ule, and what play­time did hap­pen often occurred when no one else was around, lead­ing to an accu­sa­tion by the hos­pi­tal that they were “not bonding.”

Mixed Mes­sages

Christina was per­mit­ted to leave the hos­pi­tal twice, briefly. Once it was for a shower and a nap at a nearby relative’s home, and the other time it was to visit another fam­ily mem­ber who was hos­pi­tal­ized while they were there. Those vis­its would come back to haunt her, when she was accused of leav­ing her baby twice, though nurses were sup­posed to be watch­ing her and had told her she could leave.
One time, a nurse arrived 10 min­utes ahead of time with a bot­tle for Christina to feed Bella. She was very kind, and told the exhausted mom that she would leave a note to ensure that the for­mula was deliv­ered early to avoid any late feed­ings. Any late feed­ings resulted in chas­tise­ment for Christina.
Either the next nurse didn’t see it the same way, or there was a fail­ure to com­mu­ni­cate between the nurses, which, accord­ing to Christina, “it fell back on me.” When the for­mula still hadn’t arrived 10 min­utes past the time for the feed­ing, Christina called the nurses sta­tion. She was rebuked for not doing her job as a mother in call­ing ahead for the bottle.

Sab­o­tage

Despite all this, Bella con­tin­ued to thrive, because she was receiv­ing a for­mula that agreed with her. Then, Christina over­heard a social worker con­demn­ing her when she went to get some­one to get a bot­tle for feed­ing time. (The nurs­ing sta­tion had not responded to her calls.) The social worker was allegedly in the hall­way telling a nurse that the baby was gain­ing weight, but that “she fore­saw a great decline if she was to be dis­charged home with her mother.”
Not a sin­gle test was per­formed on Bella at Boston Children’s Hospital.

DCF Seizes Bella

It was later that very day that the hos­pi­tal team informed her that they were con­cerned, and that DCF was on their way to take Bella. They changed the diag­no­sis to fail­ure to thrive with no med­ical cause, even though she was rapidly gain­ing weight. It was May 2, 2014. Bella was 3 1/2 months old.
This was the day after Rev­erend Patrick Mahoney led a national prayer meet­ing for Justina Pel­letier, and just weeks before Chuck Nor­ris wrote his pow­er­ful Town­hall piece:

Who Owns Our Kids Anyway?

While the eyes of the nation focused on Boston Children’s Hos­pi­tal and Justina, the hos­pi­tal had once again con­spired to take another child from her par­ents, pun­ish­ing them for their baby’s reflux and sen­si­tiv­ity to for­mula. The world saw Justina, but hun­dreds more chil­dren, like Bella, were hid­den from the pub­lic eye as their lives were dev­as­tated. In the words of this heart­bro­ken mother:
“As a first time mother, I was robbed of one of the most crit­i­cal, irre­place­able times in my daughter’s life. These are days I will never get back. … You choose to take MY daugh­ter, who was loved, fed and clothed. A PREEMIE who needed noth­ing more than a higher calo­rie for­mula – which she was put on and thriv­ing before you stole her from my arms with secu­rity out­side that meet­ing room – as if I were some kind of crim­i­nal! … That’s my baby, my entire world.”

Adop­tion Plan

Christina says that she has seen her baby girl for a grand total of about 40 hours since that hor­ri­ble day. Jonathon’s vis­its are even more lim­ited. He writes:
“I remem­ber the first breath she took, the first cry she made. … I thought to myself, I can’t believe she’s here, I can’t believe I get to meet the lit­tle girl I’ve spent the last few months talk­ing to inside my wife’s womb, the lit­tle girl I sang to on a nightly basis before we went to bed, no mat­ter how early I had to get up for work. … Now I get to see my baby girl in pic­tures, short videos, for 2 hours each month, 4 hours if I’m lucky and DCF doesn’t have an excuse why I can’t. … 2 hours a month doesn’t exactly give her time to know who her father is. That kills me.”
Lack of bond­ing con­tin­ues to be an alle­ga­tion against the par­ents by DCF, even though their actions directly inhibit bond­ing. Bella has been placed with rel­a­tives, but it isn’t the same. The sad­ness can be seen in her eyes in some of the pho­tos. Babies know that they belong with their mom­mies. It is inher­ent in human nature to want bio­log­i­cal mom.
Though Christina and Jonathon have done every­thing they can do to com­ply with the demands of DCF, the state of Mass­a­chu­setts con­tin­ues to keep them away from their baby. They have been blamed for not par­tic­i­pat­ing in ser­vices, ser­vices which DCF stopped, not them. At one point, they were told that they must admit to alle­ga­tions, accu­sa­tions that they insist are false, if they were to have hope of get­ting Bella back.
On April 6, DCF announced that the plan has changed from reuni­fi­ca­tion to adoption.
The cou­ple is expect­ing another baby soon. They are hop­ing and pray­ing that this baby will be safe.

How You Can Help

There is a peti­tion for baby Bella at Change.org, as well as a Face­book page called Fight for Bella, set up by sup­port­ers to fol­low their story.
Sup­port­ers ask that the Gov­er­nor of Mass­a­chu­setts be called, ask­ing that Bella be returned home imme­di­ately. Gov­er­nor Char­lie Baker may be reached at (617)727‑3666, or con­tacted here.
The Sen­a­tor for their dis­trict in Mass­a­chu­setts is Sen­a­tor Joan Lovely. She may be reached at (617)722‑1410, or con­tacted here.
The dis­trict is rep­re­sented by Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Tucker. He may be reached at (617)722‑2400, or con­tacted here.
Alabama’s DHR acted appro­pri­ately in this mat­ter, and is to be com­mended. How­ever, Mass­a­chu­setts DCF chased the Hinotes all the way into the south­ern state. Alabama’s Gov­er­nor is Robert Bent­ley. Alabama leg­is­la­ture cur­rently has a parental rights bill before it, in which they could vote to secure Fun­da­men­tal Parental Rights. Gov­er­nor Bent­ley may be reached at (334)242‑7100, or con­tacted here, and asked to advo­cate on baby Bella’s behalf, a baby born in Alabama, but held cap­tive in Mass­a­chu­setts
– See more at: http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/another-medical-kidnapping-at-boston-childrens-hospital-baby-seized-over-formula-disagreement/#sthash.HqkRojDB.dpuf

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