Thursday, June 21, 2007 So: Breastmasters By Michelle P. So Caught in the Net
THE photo was more eye-catching than the story. Why would it be not? It was of women of various stages of aging publicly baring their breasts. Baring is hardly an accurate term because the women had bodily painted themselves, putting art and slogans on their chest. So the paint was a camouflage for drooping bosoms, especially for those of the spunky 72-year-old lola.
The women, 21 of them and presumably all mothers, partly exposed themselves outside the Supreme Court building to show their support to the Department of Health’s strict regulation on infant formula milk advertisements. The breast demonstration came a few hours before the SC was about to hear the oral arguments on the Milk Code, which bans ads for breast milk substitutes for babies up to two years old and aims to promote breastfeeding.
The days of bra-burning to amplify a cause are long gone like the last millennium; in this Messenger era, breast exposure is more Pam Anderson-like and more riveting for the media.
Milk companies, through the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Association of the Philippines (Phap), has sued the DOH on the ground that the code curtails international trade and marketing agreements. The DOH has contended that the growing trend of Filipino working mothers’ substitution of infant formula milk for breast milk is a cause for alarm and that the ads and promotions of milk products tend to convey subliminal messages that undermine breast milk and breastfeeding.
I have no quarrel with the 21 uninhibited mothers on the benefits of breastfeeding, but I believe in informed choice. Let the mother decide on how she wants her baby nursed. She knows that her milk is the best nourishment for her baby but if for some reason she can’t or won’t breastfeed her baby, let it be her informed choice. She resorts to formula milk if she can’t give enough of her own or if she can’t give it at all because she has to be away from her child.
Mothers in urban areas and with their own earnings sport a different lifestyle from those in rural areas and low-income households. Many of them put premium on convenience over cost. Formula milk is expensive but they can afford it. What they can’t afford is being away from their work for long periods because otherwise, the entire family gets affected.
In rural areas and low-income households, formula milk is a luxury for the baby. That’s why mothers belonging to this bracket prefer to breastfeed their babies. Just check out the slum areas in Cebu City or the remote mountains of Sagada in Mountain Province and Arakan in North Cotabato, you’ll see a lot of mothers suckling their babies. (And the mothers’ breasts are bare; no sunburst design or slogans painted on them.)
But the feud between Phap and the DOH is not really over breastfeeding. Both wholeheartedly believe that a mother’s milk has no substitute. It is about what the milk companies can say or put, or can’t, in their advertisements about their products. A milk company can’t say that drinking this particular brand can make a genius or a musical virtuoso out of the baby, or make the baby grow three feet in two commercial seconds.
Just wondering: is there a higher chance for children who were breastfed getting intestinal worms when they reach school age than those fed on formula milk? Also, do boobs of breastfeeding women sag faster and lower than non-breastfeeders? Whose breasts among the 21 pairs got the most or longest views? Lola’s, you think?
(MPS, chief of editorial operations for Sun.Star Publications Network, travels regularly to major cities outside Cebu where there are Sun.Star papers. Her weekly column talks about people and issues that hold common interest for Sun.Star readers wherever they are.
Since October 2004, MPS has been on leave from her job as Sun.Star Cebu executive editor [admin operations].)
