Cry for help: Turning five an uphill battle

EACH year, millions of children die before reaching the age of five, said the World Health Organization (WHO). The greater tragedy is that most of the deaths are preventable, arising simply from conditions like malnutrition, pneumonia, diarrhea and neonatal infections that can readily be addressed.

To save the world’s children, the United Nations pledged to cut mortality rates of children under five years old by two-thirds from 1990 to 2015, as part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

By 2011, global under-five deaths had dropped from nearly 12 million in 1990 to 6.9 million. But the proportion of children dying in the first 28 days of life rose from 37 percent in 1990 to 43 percent of under-five deaths in 2011, the WHO said.

In the Philippines, 90 percent of the infants who died under six months old were those not breastfed, the 2011 MDG Achievement Fund Mid-term Evalu- ation Report showed. This underscores the role of breastfeeding in preventing child deaths.

The United Nations Children’s Fund or Unicef says breast milk contains “hundreds of health-enhancing antibodies and enzymes,” protects babies from diarrhea and acute respiratory infections—two top causes of infant death—and makes them less prone to asthma, allergies, and childhood diabetes and cancers.

Breastfeeding helps mothers too, lowering their risks of postpartum hemorrhage, and obesity and breast and ovarian cancer later in life, the WHO said.

In this two-part special report, Sun.Star Cebu explores the path that Cebu City took to become a breastfeeding champion and the challenges that keep it from saving many more lives.

This year, Mother’s Day celebrations are over. But the sobering reality is that for countless mothers and infants out there, the celebrations never began.