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ENVIRONMENTALISTS threw their support behind the shared
effort of the government and the civil society to
promote and protect breastmilk, the most healthy and
ecologically sound food for babies.
Waste
and pollution activists belonging to the EcoWaste
Coalition conveyed their support for breastfeeding as
the government clashed with the milk industry at the
Supreme Court last week over the legality of the revised
implementing rules and regulations that tighten the
20-year-old National Milk Code and expand the ban on the
promotion of breastmilk substitutes for children up to
two years of age.
“We,
women and men who have been blessed to be breastfed by
our mothers, add our voice to the raging battle to
defend our culture of breast-feeding from being weakened
by publicity gimmicks that only seek to create a larger
market for infant formula and rake in profits for milk
and advertising companies,” said Gigie Cruz-Sy, a
lactating mother and member of the EcoWaste Coalition.
The World Health Organization estimates that Filipinos
spend some P21.5 billion a year to feed babies with
commercial breast-milk substitutes.
Echoing
the concern of public health experts, the EcoWaste
Coalition expressed shock over the disturbing decline in
breast-feeding in the Philippines. Data from the 2003
National Demographic and Health Survey showed that only
16.1 percent of infants are solely breast-fed up to four
to five months of age, down from 20 percent in 1998. The
waning rate in breast-feeding has been linked to the
death of some 16,000 children under five due to improper
feeding practices.
In an
e-mailed statement, the EcoWaste Coalition affirmed that
breast milk offers the best nutritional start in life
for children, providing babies with vital nutrients,
sufficient water for hydration, and health-enhancing
antibodies and enzymes to protect them against infection
and allergy. Breast-feeding allows a healthy bonding
between the baby and the mother and further helps in
birth spacing.
Breast
milk, emphasized the EcoWaste Coalition, is naturally
produced and readily available to the infant consumer at
the right temperature without creating waste and
pollution that lead to climate change and a host of
community health and environmental problems.
“As
advocates for waste prevention and reduction, we can not
help but be incensed by the ongoing attack against
breastfeeding. We assert that breastfeeding is not only
best for babies and their mothers, but also best in
protecting the environment,” said Cruz-Sy. She further
warned that “any attempt to undermine breast-feeding is
a gross disservice to Mother Earth and humanity.”
In
explaining the ecological benefits of breast-feeding,
Cruz pointed out that unlike infant formula, breast milk
is waste-free and requires neither paper, plastic and
tin packaging nor feeding gear like plastic bottles and
teats, the production of which consumes lots of raw
materials and generates tons of wastes and toxics.
“By
breast-feeding, women forestall the further destruction
of our ravaged environment, given that breast-feeding
requires no forest to be cleared for pasture or to grow
cattle feed, no trees to be felled for the labels and
promotional gimmicks, no mountain to be mined to produce
tin cans, and no fossil fuels to be burned to support
the complex cycle of producing and transporting milk
substitutes,” said Cruz-Sy.
Members
of the EcoWaste Coalition appealed to the government and
the civil society to continue defending the right of
each and every baby to full access to breast milk for
the sake of child, maternal and environmental health. |
