Interesting headling in the Philippine Daily Inquirer today:
RP Breast Feeding Queen is German.
MANILA, Philippines—The “Breastfeeding Queen of the Philippines†is—quite ironically—not a Filipino.
She is German Dr. Susann Roth, who was feted by the Children for Breastfeeding Inc. (CfB) last week, for championing the cause despite aggressive marketing campaigns of multinational milk companies.
Roth, a 32-year-old mother of two baby girls, is aware of the paradox that a foreigner has become the “face†of the local drive to promote breast-feeding.
But she is probably what the campaign needs to convince Filipino mothers that breast milk is still—and always has been—the best for their babies.
“The Philippines still has a long way to go in terms of accepting breast-feeding,†Roth tells the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an interview.
The problem, she says, is deeply ingrained in the Filipino psyche, thanks to years of generally deceptive advertising by foreign milk companies.
Beautiful lady. Beautiful Family. If it takes a foreigner to inspire my countrymen to go back to breast feeding, so be it. I have observed that the best guarantee a woman will breast feed is to marry a stay at home wife. Don’t marry those career women. Most of them prioritize their “work” over their children. I married a career woman so I know what I’m talking about. Yes, yes, she has no choice but to stop breast feeding after 6 months…
More interesting snippets from the same article:
Some 16,000 Filipino children under 5 years old die annually because they are not breast-fed, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which advocates exclusive breast-feeding within the first six months from birth.
Babies reared on milk formula products are “7 to 25 times†more likely to die of diarrhea and “5 to 50 times†more likely to contract pneumonia than breast-fed infants.
The WHO says Filipinos spend some P21.5 billion yearly on formula milk—an amount they could have used for other necessities if they had breast-fed their babies.
So, wake up young ladies and smell the truth. You want healthy babies? Then breast feed them. Breast milk is best for babies up to 2 years. Or so you didn’t hear that mandatory message inserted in every milk formula advertisement?
My wife and I were lucky to attend personal seminars with the La Leche League. Look them up on the internet. Find your local chapter and join in. They are the best.