By . Daily Mail Reporter . The mother of one of AOL's costly 'distressed . babies' has spoken out for the first time after CEO Tim Armstrong blamed her daughter's medical costs for employee pension cuts. Deanna Fei, whose daughter spent three months in intensive care after being born four months premature, today said the way Armstrong announced the 401(k) policy change was 'completely dehumanizing'. 'When I saw the headlines, it was sort of impossible to process he was talking about my daughter,' Fei told NBC Nightly News. 'It (was) a violation - for singling us out for using the health plan we paid for.' Fei's husband, Peter S. Goodman, is executive business editor at AOL-owned Huffington Post. The New York-based couple has a son and daughter. She did not give her daughter's name. Shocking: This gorgeous little girl was one of the 'distressed babies' AOL chief Tim Armstrong blamed for scaling back retirement savings plans . Shocked: New York couple Deanna Fei (left) and Peter Goodman (right) are still in shock at the way Armstrong announced AOL's pension policy changes . Armstrong recently came under fire after announcing policy changes which would have switched 401(k) matching contributions to an annual lump sum, rather than being distributed throughout the year with every paycheck. The switch would have cost employees who left mid-year and even those who stayed, since they would not see the benefits of compounding in their retirement accounts, Washington Post reported. When the embattled chief tried to explain the controversial plan during an employee meeting on Thursday, he made matters worse. Armstrong told a story about two women covered by AOL who had complicated pregnancies, forcing the company to shell out $2 million 'above and beyond' what was necessary. He said, with Obamacare potentially adding $7.1 million to AOL's costs in addition to the 'distressed babies', the company needed to find cost savings elsewhere and was forced to change 401(k) to protect itself. Armstrong reportedly earned $12m in 2012. The comments caused a publicity storm, with employees sending letters to Armstrong, and Huffington Post giving it big coverage. Fei told NBC she was appalled at Armstrong's 'implication that somehow we were greedy consumers of health . care benefits.' Big wigs: Peter S. Goodman executive business editor at AOL-owned Huffington Post, holding his son and speaking with Arianna Huffington . Writer: Deanna Fei is the author of 2010 novel, 'A Thread of Sky' As a result of the outcry, Armstrong yesterday apologized and agreed to restore the original 401(k) policy. 'The leadership team and I listened to your feedback over the last week. We heard you on this topic,' he wrote in an email to employees, according to Business Insider. 'And as we discussed the matter over several days, with management and employees, we have decided to change the policy back to a per-pay-period matching contribution.' However for Fei, author of 2010 bestseller 'A Thread of Sky', 'the damage to my family had already been done'. The mother-of-two wrote a heartbreaking first-person article for Slate in which she recounted the painful birth of her now one-year-old daughter and . reprimanded Armstrong for his thoughtless comments. 'I take issue with how he reduced my daughter to a 'distressed baby' who cost the company too much money. How he blamed the saving of her life for his decision to scale back employee benefits,' she wrote. 'How he exposed the most searing experience of our lives, one that my husband and I still struggle to discuss with anyone but each other, for no other purpose than an absurd justification for corporate cost-cutting.... 'Our daughter has already overcome more setbacks than most of us have endured in the span of our lives. Having her very existence used as a scapegoat for cutting corporate benefits was one indignity too many.' Backpedaling: AOL chief Tim Armstrong yesterday scuttled a plan to delay company contributions to employee retirement accounts and apologized for singling out two families for rising costs . In the harrowing piece, Fei explained how her little girl was born prematurely on October 9, 2012, with reddish-purple skin, bloody and bruised all over. 'One doctor, visibly shaken, described it as 'gelatinous',' she wrote. 'I couldn’t hold my daughter or nurse her or hear her cries, which were silenced by the ventilator. Without it, she couldn’t breathe.' Doctors told the couple their daughter might not survive one month or one week or one day. She also had at least a one-third chance of being severely disabled. In the toughest months, the little girl suffered a brain hemorrhage, her right lung collapsed and one morning, she stopped breathing altogether. She spent three months in the NICU, enduring blood transfusions, head ultrasounds, the insertion of breathing tubes, feeding tubes, and a central line extending nearly to her heart. 'Because the day of her birth was the furthest thing from a happy event, because so many of her first days were lived under the specter of death, I’ve never had the luxury of taking her presence for granted,' Fei wrote for Slate. 'It can be a struggle to set aside my lingering trauma amid the daily realities of coordinating her care to simply celebrate the fierce, beautiful girl who has completed our family. 'All of which made the implication from Armstrong that the saving of her life was an extravagant option, an oversize burden on the company bottom line, feel like a cruel violation, no less brutal for the ludicrousness of his contention.'
AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong recently changed 401(k) pension scheme, disadvantaging many employees .
On .
an internal call Thursday, he attributed the change partly to soaring .
medical costs associated with two families' 'distressed babies'
One of the mothers, author Deanna Fei, today slammed Armstrong's comments as 'a violation' and 'completely dehumanizing'
Fei's daughter spent three months in NICU after being born premature, costing $1m in medical fees .
Fei's husband, Peter Goodman, is a business editor at AOL-owned Huffington Post .
Armstrong reversed the policy yesterday and apologized .
By . Daily Mail Reporter . The mother of one of AOL's costly 'distressed . babies' has spoken out for the first time after CEO Tim Armstrong blamed her daughter's medical costs for employee pension cuts. Deanna Fei, whose daughter spent three months in intensive care after being born four months premature, today said the way Armstrong announced the 401(k) policy change was 'completely dehumanizing'. 'When I saw the headlines, it was sort of impossible to process he was talking about my daughter,' Fei told NBC Nightly News. 'It (was) a violation - for singling us out for using the health plan we paid for.' Fei's husband, Peter S. Goodman, is executive business editor at AOL-owned Huffington Post. The New York-based couple has a son and daughter. She did not give her daughter's name. Shocking: This gorgeous little girl was one of the 'distressed babies' AOL chief Tim Armstrong blamed for scaling back retirement savings plans . Shocked: New York couple Deanna Fei (left) and Peter Goodman (right) are still in shock at the way Armstrong announced AOL's pension policy changes . Armstrong recently came under fire after announcing policy changes which would have switched 401(k) matching contributions to an annual lump sum, rather than being distributed throughout the year with every paycheck. The switch would have cost employees who left mid-year and even those who stayed, since they would not see the benefits of compounding in their retirement accounts, Washington Post reported. When the embattled chief tried to explain the controversial plan during an employee meeting on Thursday, he made matters worse. Armstrong told a story about two women covered by AOL who had complicated pregnancies, forcing the company to shell out $2 million 'above and beyond' what was necessary. He said, with Obamacare potentially adding $7.1 million to AOL's costs in addition to the 'distressed babies', the company needed to find cost savings elsewhere and was forced to change 401(k) to protect itself. Armstrong reportedly earned $12m in 2012. The comments caused a publicity storm, with employees sending letters to Armstrong, and Huffington Post giving it big coverage. Fei told NBC she was appalled at Armstrong's 'implication that somehow we were greedy consumers of health . care benefits.' Big wigs: Peter S. Goodman executive business editor at AOL-owned Huffington Post, holding his son and speaking with Arianna Huffington . Writer: Deanna Fei is the author of 2010 novel, 'A Thread of Sky' As a result of the outcry, Armstrong yesterday apologized and agreed to restore the original 401(k) policy. 'The leadership team and I listened to your feedback over the last week. We heard you on this topic,' he wrote in an email to employees, according to Business Insider. 'And as we discussed the matter over several days, with management and employees, we have decided to change the policy back to a per-pay-period matching contribution.' However for Fei, author of 2010 bestseller 'A Thread of Sky', 'the damage to my family had already been done'. The mother-of-two wrote a heartbreaking first-person article for Slate in which she recounted the painful birth of her now one-year-old daughter and . reprimanded Armstrong for his thoughtless comments. 'I take issue with how he reduced my daughter to a 'distressed baby' who cost the company too much money. How he blamed the saving of her life for his decision to scale back employee benefits,' she wrote. 'How he exposed the most searing experience of our lives, one that my husband and I still struggle to discuss with anyone but each other, for no other purpose than an absurd justification for corporate cost-cutting.... 'Our daughter has already overcome more setbacks than most of us have endured in the span of our lives. Having her very existence used as a scapegoat for cutting corporate benefits was one indignity too many.' Backpedaling: AOL chief Tim Armstrong yesterday scuttled a plan to delay company contributions to employee retirement accounts and apologized for singling out two families for rising costs . In the harrowing piece, Fei explained how her little girl was born prematurely on October 9, 2012, with reddish-purple skin, bloody and bruised all over. 'One doctor, visibly shaken, described it as 'gelatinous',' she wrote. 'I couldn’t hold my daughter or nurse her or hear her cries, which were silenced by the ventilator. Without it, she couldn’t breathe.' Doctors told the couple their daughter might not survive one month or one week or one day. She also had at least a one-third chance of being severely disabled. In the toughest months, the little girl suffered a brain hemorrhage, her right lung collapsed and one morning, she stopped breathing altogether. She spent three months in the NICU, enduring blood transfusions, head ultrasounds, the insertion of breathing tubes, feeding tubes, and a central line extending nearly to her heart. 'Because the day of her birth was the furthest thing from a happy event, because so many of her first days were lived under the specter of death, I’ve never had the luxury of taking her presence for granted,' Fei wrote for Slate. 'It can be a struggle to set aside my lingering trauma amid the daily realities of coordinating her care to simply celebrate the fierce, beautiful girl who has completed our family. 'All of which made the implication from Armstrong that the saving of her life was an extravagant option, an oversize burden on the company bottom line, feel like a cruel violation, no less brutal for the ludicrousness of his contention.'
her daughter's medical costs for employee pension cuts. Deanna Fei, whose daughter spent three months in intensive care after being born four months premature, today said the way Armstrong announced the 401(k) policy change was 'completely dehumanizing'. 'When I saw the Nightly News. 'It (was) a violation - for for.' Fei's husband, Peter S. Goodman, is executive business editor at AOL-owned Huffington the 'distressed babies' AOL chief Tim Armstrong Huffington . Writer: Deanna Fei is the author of he wrote in an email to employees, according to Backpedaling: AOL chief Tim Armstrong yesterday employee retirement accounts and apologized for singling out two families for rising costs . In spent three months in the NICU, enduring blood