DOH promotes breastfeeding as family planning method

The Department of Health is promoting breastfeeding as a family planning method.

Assistant Secretary Eric Tayag said the DOH is encouraging young women and couples to practice exclusive breastfeeding from birth up to the first six months and continue with appropriate complementary feeding after six months.

“Aside from nutrition and health benefits to babies, exclusive breastfeeding is also a modern and natural method for birth spacing,” he said.

Tayag said exclusive breastfeeding is the process by which the infant receives only breast milk and no other liquids or solid, not even water, with the exception of oral rehydration solution or syrups of vitamins.

“There are challenges, but we want to promote exclusive breastfeeding and family planning like something that we do everyday naturally,” he said.

“We want it to become something that people, particularly those who need these services, do everyday like brushing their teeth.”

Tayag said the DOH will undertake a house-to-house campaign to encourage new and expectant mothers in urban areas to practice exclusive breastfeeding.

The rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months remained low at 24.7 percent, but the DOH is exerting efforts to increase the figure to at least 50 percent by 2025, he added.

Yesterday, the DOH initiated the Annual Breastfeeding and Family Planning Summit to highlight the importance of breastfeeding in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in infant, child and women’s health.

Tayag said the DOH is also consolidating strategies on reproductive health services to make it more accessible to women and couples so they could have the opportunity to plan the number of their children and provide a healthy and prosperous environment for their families.

The DOH is also looking at a mechanism to address the problem in the distribution of family planning commodities and make it more accessible to young couples, he added.

It has set up a call center to monitor the stock of contraceptives and allow the DOH to receive requests or information of stock out so that replacement can be immediately made, Tayag said.

The World Health Organization, UNFPA and UNICEF have expressed their support for the DOH efforts to promote breastfeeding and family planning.

Gundo Weiler of WHO said breastfeeding is a non-medical family planning method that can have a huge impact in lowering the Philippines’ infant and maternal mortality rates.

At this time, breastfeeding as a family planning method is still underused despite its huge potential, he added.

Breastfeeding and family planning are doable programs that the government can undertake to fix the prevailing problem of pregnancy-related deaths, the UNFPA and UNICEF said.