PYEONGTAEK, South Korea — Camp Humphreys officials are seeking a workable plan that would permit mothers to breast-feed their children discreetly in public places on post.
They’re also looking for an arrangement that would allow parents without cars to stow bulky child safety seats rather than lugging them around while running errands.
Community members raised both issues during a recent annual Army Family Action Plan conference at the post, said Robert H. McElroy, spokesman for U.S. Army Garrison-Humphreys.
Groups of volunteers are now working under the supervision of the post’s AFAP coordinator to draw up concrete proposals on how both needs could be met, McElroy said.
The groups’ recommendations will be forwarded to garrison commander Col. Joseph P. Moore. There’s no deadline for their recommendations, but they could be made within "coming months," McElroy said.
It’ll then be up to Moore to decide whether to accept the proposals or call for further work on the issues.
But Moore’s already "endorsed" the idea of acting on both issues, according to McElroy.
The AFAP conference aims to identify the community’s most important concerns, then find ways to address them, McElroy said.
Several women have proposed that collapsible partitions be provided around post that women could set up and use as a screen while breast-feeding.
As a longer-term solution, the women also suggested that new buildings slated for eventual construction at Humphreys include breast-feeding rooms.
Stowing child safety seats is a concern for parents who use taxis and buses. Army rules mandate that children be fastened into safety seats when traveling on post in any vehicle.
Spc. Heather Landreth and her husband are parents of a 7-month-old girl, and she’d welcome a place to deposit the seat.
Landreth, 27, a military police officer with the 557th Military Police Company, has sometimes had to put the safety seat in the well of a shopping cart while her daughter sits in the front of the cart.
"It seems," she said, "like it would be more convenient to be able to drop the car seat, then go shopping, then you could come back out, get the car seat, then do whatever else you’re going to do."
