Pia wants 'human milk banks' in more hospitals

Senator Pia S. Cayetano wants "human milk banks" to be put up in more hospitals providing maternity and childbirth delivery services as an additional measure to promote early breastfeeding and eliminate the use of infant formula milk in both public and private hospitals.

The proposal is a new feature of Cayetano's Senate Bill 1698, also known as the "Expanded Breastfeeding Act of 2007."

The bill which principally mandates the establishment of breastfeeding stations in public places and workplaces has been approved by the Senate and is expected to be acted upon by the House of Representatives when session resumes next month

Currently, only the Philippine Children's Medical Center (PCMC) and the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) are known to have human milk bank facilities, pointed out Cayetano, Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Health and Demography.

The milk stored in these facilities would be given to infants at the hospital's Intensive Care Unit (ICU) whose mothers are still too sick or too weak to breastfeed.

Other lactating mothers will be asked to donate to the facility their own milk, which will be stored and pasteurized under strict standards to prevent contamination and the transfer of communicable diseases.

Stressing that breastfeeding should always be the first choice, she said, "through the milk banks, mothers who are unable to breastfeed can still provide human milk to their child instead of resorting to infant formula."

She also clarified that the concept of milk banks does not in any way support the myth that "some mothers just don't have enough milk and (therefore) cannot breastfeed" in order to justify the "need" for infant formula.

These facilities are primarily aimed at ensuring that human milk is made available even to newborn babies whose mothers underwent difficult childbirth or are unable to lactate immediately due to their medical condition, she added.

Cayetano said multi-sectoral efforts to promote breastfeeding should not cease or falter even following the Supreme Court's October 9 decision that voided the absolute ban on the advertisement of infant formula products under the implementing rules of Executive Order No. 51 or the Milk Code.

"In fact, there's more reason now to intensify these efforts in all fronts. Enacting new measures like this to strengthen the Milk Code would be a step forward," she concluded.