Hidden teens, freebies and cracking the whip

Networking both good and bad for promotion of exclusive breastfeeding in Cebu City

BREAST milk is not just best for babies. It’s all that an infant needs during the first six months of life.

Marife O. Benlot of Barangay Basak-Pardo did not first read these facts from the Early Childhood Care and Development card she brings whenever she takes son, John Paul, two months, for immunization at the health station in Cebu City.

She heard this first in her science class last year. At 15, the third year high school student found out she was pregnant. Neither Benlot nor her boyfriend, a schoolmate, planned the pregnancy. Now 16, she is a mother who exclusively breastfeeds John Paul whenever he wants.

This June, Benlot plans to enroll at the nearby public night high school. The hours are shorter. During the break, she wants to go home and breastfeed John Paul. The teen mother in- tends to do so until he is two years or older, another recommendation she recalls from science class.

Dismal trend

If Benlot keeps her resolve, she bucks the dismal trend of infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices that, according to the Department of Health (DOH), cause the death of 82,000 Filipino children yearly before they celebrate their fifth birthday.

The Philippines ranked 29th among the 42 nations that together accounted for 90 percent of the under-five deaths in the year 2000.

The global under-five deaths were led by India (2.4 million deaths), Nigeria (834,000), China (784,000), Pakistan (565,000) and DR Congo (484,000), said Robert Black et al. in “Child Survival I” published in The Lancet journal in 2003.

Not sustained

Although approximately 85 percent of mothers in the Philippines initiate breastfeeding, 50 percent stop when the infant is only three weeks old. DOH data also show that by the fourth or fifth month, only 16 percent of mothers still exclusively breastfeed their babies. This means the rest of the mothers were already either partially or exclusively relying on formula feeding.

Jenivy Hipulan, 26, of Barangay Labangon, said she exclusively breastfeeds her child, Leony, four months. Yet, when Leony was a month old, Jenivy started giving her a drop of Tiki-Tiki, a popular multivitamin.

Correcting current IYCF practices to boost exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) means addressing the “problem of education,” said Dr. Mary Christine R. Castro, deputy executive director of the Nutrition Center of the Philippines (NCP), a non-government organization partner in the “Breastfeeding Tama, Sapat, EKsklusibo”