Hooray for DOH's Exclusive Breastfeeding Campaign!

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Finally! The Department of Health has just launched its campaign on exclusive breastfeeding entitled “Mother’s Milk is TSEK! (“Tama, Sapat at Eksklusibo”) last Wednesday. It campaigns for exclusive breastfeeding during the baby’s first six months of life. Exclusive breastfeeding means that the baby will only be given breastmilk during the entire period … meaning no water and other liquids, no food and no infant formula. I say, it’s about time they do this.

Regular readers of my blog would know that I am a big breastfeeding advocate. My plan for baby Ziggy is exactly to exclusively breastfeed him for the first 6 months and to only start introducing food during the 7th month while still breastfeeding until he’s at least 1 year old. There’s just a lot of benefits to this for both babies and moms alike. One of the benefits is lower risk for asthma throughout the baby’s life, which is something very important to me knowing that Kai has had asthma since he was a kid and Ziggy might inherit it. If there is something we moms can do to prevent something like this, I think it’s our responsibility to do it.

I am especially happy that the DOH is targeting new and expectant mothers, primarily in the lower income bracket, because they are the ones who are in dire need of access to the right information on breastfeeding. This is especially beneficial to them since breastfeeding will also help them avoid the high costs of infant formula. Besides, healthier babies could only mean a healthier nation as a whole, right?

This campaign is also supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF. To read more about this campaign, click here for the article I read from Manila Bulletin online or click here to read about WHO’s statement on exclusive breastfeeding.