Community support to boost breastfeeding drive
Roxas City -- Community support towards the campaign on breastfeeding would be very vital to realize the implementation of Executive Order No. 51, otherwise known as the Milk Code of the Philippines.
Dr. Raoul Bermejo III, Medical Coordinator on the Maternal and Child Health of the Provincial Health Office of Capiz said that they continue to intensify their campaign on exclusive breastfeeding not only to promote the economic gains but primarily for the welfare of the babies and mothers.
Bermejo, who has just joined the provincial government here last November 2, insisted that breast milk remains to be the best milk for babies.
He stressed that babies who were exclusively breastfed were found to be less sickly. He added that those babies also have faster and better neuro and physical development than those who were only given milk formula.
According to Bermejo, the 115 organized barangay breastfeeding support groups have greatly contributed to the 87 percent exclusively breastfed babies up to six months in the province.
He added that they are also strengthening their linkage with the private hospitals, lying-in clinics, and maternity and birthing clinics here to promote and implement Republic Act 7600 or the Rooming-In and Breastfeeding Act and EO 51. World Health Organization (WHO) country representative Dr. Jean Marc Olive, earlier warned that babies who were not breastfed were 10 times more likely to die of diarrhea, 3.6 times more likely to die of pneumonia, and 2.5 times more likely to suffer from other infections.
Around 50 non-government organizations have banded together into a nationwide coalition to help promote breastfeeding and implement the revised implementing rules and regulations of the new Milk Code.
Together, the alliance dubbed "People of the Philippines to Protect Breast Feeding" boasts of 5,000 individuals committed to campaign against multi-national infant formula companies, according to convenor Ines Fernandez.
Health Secretary Francisco Duque III stood firm on the provision requiring milk companies to put up labels warning that their products "may" contain life-threatening bacteria like "enterobacter sakazakii and "salmonella".
The provisions was consistent with the findings of experts from the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization (WHO), Duque told Thomas Donahue, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America.
(PIA)