Breast-feeding only way to go, says WHO
Inquirer News Service Agence France-Presse
FILIPINO FAMILIES TYPICALLY spend a quarter of their incomes on expensive infant formula substitutes instead of just breast-feeding their babies, the World Health Organization said yesterday.
"If you go by the cost of feeding your child with infant formula of about P2,000 per month, and when you compare that to the average income of a five-person family which is P7,000, it's a quarter of their income (that) goes to milk substitutes," said Dr. Jean Marc Olive, WHO representative in the country.
Milk substitutes are not only costly but also deadly, according to Olive, as he called attention to Philippine government data which showed that about 16,000 infants and toddlers die every year because they fail to get the proper nutrients from infant formula.
The babies die due to diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition, he said. The government spends as much as P450 million yearly to treat the diseases which could be avoided by exclusively breast-feeding babies within the first six months from birth, he said.
Breast-feeding "is the most cost-effective action in reducing child mortality," Olive said.
He urged the government to do more to spread awareness about the benefits of breast-feeding.
For a start, the WHO is providing seed money of P492,000 to the Liga ng mga Barangay (League of Villages) to fund a nationwide information campaign on breast-feeding under a memorandum of agreement the two agencies signed yesterday.
The MOA provides that the barangay league will promote breast-feeding initially in at least 1,000 barangays using the seed money from WHO.
In his speech, league president James Marty Lim described the campaign as a "David versus Goliath" effort, considering that it would eventually have to contend with multinational companies selling infant formula.
"It's no small battle," he said. But the WHO initiative could counter the companies' multimillion-peso campaigns by highlighting "success stories" of babies nurtured with breast milk, Lim said.