“When Zachary was hospitalized for five months it was devastating for us to see him suffer without being able to do anything. Sometimes he was so sick that we were not allowed to even touch him. We witnessed babies that were sick and not so sick, babies that died, and even babies that were never held or visited by their relatives. At the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), I would notice items that were donated to the hospital ‘in memory of’ babies, and it saddened me that there were not many ‘on behalf of’ gifts. Did babies have to die for adults to help?” Jackson said. “So I prayed to God to make a pact with me: ‘If you let us take Zachary home, I’ll help babies.’ The Zaky is the way I found to keep my side of the bargain with God.”

Though the Zaky is not a medical device, Jackson said the idea for the innovative tool did originate with significant input from nurses, doctors, therapists and mothers in the NICU at Memorial Hermann Children’s Hospital in the Texas Medical Center, where the Zaky has been successfully used since 2001.

“There were times when the nurse would place a little beanie baby on top of my son’s back,” Jackson said. “NICU nurses explained to me that when babies are in the womb they stretch, kick and move, and the womb brings them back to the fetal position. That’s why when they are born full-term the mother is taught how to swaddle the baby using towels or blankets. When babies are born prematurely, they can’t be swaddled because they have tubes, IV needles and monitors, so when they stretch as they did in the womb, they are not able to return to that fetal position and it results in stress.”

“The nurses taught me how to reposition him and to place my hand on top to give him boundaries and allow him to feel close to me. It couldn’t be patting or rubbing because these provide too much stimulation. This method of comforting by touching him with my hands and giving him boundaries when I could not hold him on my chest was very effective; however, I was not allowed to stay every night, and the nurses were caring for other babies simultaneously. I had to find a way to help my son and help me with my feelings of separation when I could not be there,” said Jackson.

Jackson said she noticed that in the mother’s absence, nurses improvised with rolled up t-shirts or towels or even a beanie baby.

Yamile Cendales Jackson and her son Zachary Jackson

Currently, Jackson runs Zakeez from her home to maximize her time with Zachary. The Zaky can be found in baby stores, child-care facilities, pediatrician offices and hospitals in the United States, Canada, Latin America and Europe, and Jackson and Zachary handle their web site sales personally.

“I try to involve Zachary as much as possible,” Jackson said. “When we get an online order, he goes and gets the Zaky. We package it together and he puts it in the mail. He understands that the Zaky is going to help a mother and her baby.”

For the work she is doing with babies, Texans Can, a non-profit organization that works with young mothers, presented Jackson with their Motherhood Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. The Zaky also received the Gold Award from Family Review Center in 2006 for its distinct design, appeal and purpose.

In addition to spending time with Zachary, Jackson also maintains her first company, Ringstones Consulting International, Inc., offering project management, consulting and training services internationally in English and Spanish.

“I knew I wanted to be an industrial engineer since I was 14. My father was an engineer, my mother has a Ph.D. in history, and she taught me that I could be anything I wanted to be if I worked hard enough,” said Jackson, a native of Columbia. “I really liked science, but I also liked interacting and helping people on a human level, so industrial engineering was the perfect fit for me.”

Because there were no Ph.D. programs in engineering in Bogotá, Colombia, Jackson came to the United States with her uncle’s help and continued her education at the University of Houston. Studying engineering has allowed Jackson the professional mobility to engage in a number of projects.

“Being an industrial engineer has been instrumental in my ability to go from working at Fluor Corporation and Kvaerner in the construction field for almost 10 years to opening my own international project management firm to helping mothers and babies in what could very well be the most traumatic experience of their lives,” Jackson said.

Between her responsibilities as a mother and a business owner, Jackson remains active in the academic side of the field. Since 2003 she has served as an adjunct professor in the MBA program at the University of Applied Sciences of Vorarlberg in Austria, which takes her (and sometimes her son and husband, Larry) to Europe for three weeks each winter and summer.

Jackson has also helped conduct a research study about risk assessment for international capital projects with the Construction Industry Institute (CII) and presented this research at the CII’s Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida, and Austin, Texas, as well as the Research Conference of the Project Management Institute in London and the Annual Congress of the Institute of Industrial Engineering in Houston. She is also on the board of directors for the Project Management Institute. In addition to her degrees from UH, Jackson also has a master’s degree in industrial engineering from Clemson University.

Jackson’s family experience and the Zaky have been featured in the health reports of the news programs on ABC, NBC, Univision, CBN and Fox as well as articles in the Houston Chronicle (July 2005), Star News Newspaper (Dec. 2005), Readers Digest (April 2002), Institute of Industrial Engineer’s Magazine (July 2004), and Physician’s Practice Magazine (Nov. – Dec. 2004). The Zaky was also featured in a CBS Special Report titled “Healing from the Storm” (June 2002) and the made-for-TV movie “14 Hours,” which aired on TNT (April 2005).

Of all her accomplishments and accolades, Jackson said her son, and the work she does with babies and kids with special needs, are her greatest achievements.

“The birth of Zachary definitely changed my life, both personally and professionally. I made a commitment to use my soul, experience and education to help improve the quality of life of premature babies,” Jackson said. “I want to do more research and product development to improve the lives of more babies, their mothers and their caregivers. I don’t want Zachary’s suffering to be in vain. I want him to know that he has helped thousands of babies, that we are very blessed for having him and that I am very grateful that he came home with us.”