An interesting Facebook message posted by our daughter caught my attention. It was an invitation for all interested persons to attend a Latch-Cebu orientation about breastfeeding and lactation management.
The positive benefits of breast milk have been proven. Breast-fed babies have better immunization and resistance to infection and other illnesses. Newborn babies are observed to be more alert and responsive with breast milk. They are also nurtured further by the bonding encouraged by breastfeeding with their mothers.
On a personal note, our first grandson, a pre-termer, was supported through his early days after delivery by breastmilk that our daughter devotedly tried to provide him while he was at the NICU (Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit). Breast milk was his first precious health blessing given to him at birth.
With the kind and generous time and assistance of the doctors, nurses and other assistants at the Chong Hua Hospital, our daughter faithfully tried her best to provide Baby DJ with his precious breast milk. During periods when her breast milk supply dwindled, gratefully, her friends who were members of Latch-Cebu generously shared their breast milk.
A year and 8 months after his birth, our daughter continues to do her best to continue to provide breast milk to Baby DJ. Having been a recipient of so much kindness and generosity from other lactating mothers when she most needed breastmilk for her own baby, now whenever she learns about cases of newly born babies needing breast milk, as far as she is able, she donates breastmilk, her own way of passing forward gratefully and joyfully to the needy infants.
An added blessing for her and her breastfeeding officemates, their company, Kyocera, allows lactating mothers in their company time and space to support breastfeeding.
Every working mother should know about the 2009 Expanded Breastfeeding Promotion Act which was signed to support, protect, and encourage women who are breastfeeding working mothers. This law declares the month of August as Breastfeeding Month where a comprehensive national public education and awareness program is to be undertaken through collaborative interagency and multisectoral effort at all levels.
The Expanded Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009 " adopts rooming-in as a national policy to encourage, protect and support breastfeeding. It shall create an environment where basic physical, emotional, and psychological needs of mothers and infants are fulfilled through the practice of rooming-in and breastfeeding."
Consistent with international treatises and conventions to which the Philippines is a signatory ( such as CEDAW- the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the Beijing Platform for Action and Strategic Objective, and the Convention on the Rights of Children), this law notes that " the state shall likewise protect working women by providing safe and healthful working conditions, taking into account their maternal functions, and such facilities and opportunities that will enhance their welfare and enable them to realize women's full potential in the service of the nation."
Working women should know that this law protects their rights as mothers 1) by requiring workplaces to establish a lactation station for nursing mothers, 2) by providing breastfeeding moms with additional breaks called lactation periods which are considered compensated hours (not less than 40 minutes of lactation break for every eight-hour working period allowing breastfeeding moms to have two-three breast milk expressions lasting 15-30 minutes each within a workday), and 3) by mandating that employers must including breastfeeding education and programs as part of their human resource development programs."
May more women be benefitted by this important law and may more employers and companies allow their women employees to provide their babies with this precious natural and healthy breastmilk through provision of lactation periods and stations and thorough lactation management and breastfeeding education and programs.