Women's group protest anti-breastfeeding amendments in parliament

Women's rights group Gabriela held a silent protest inside the public hearing on supposed regressive amendments of the Milk Code, the Philippine law on promoting breastfeeding and protecting children and parents from advertising of formula milk.
According to the group, the proposed amendments decreases to 6 months - as opposed to the present 12 months - the exclusive breastfeeding period. This will in turn allow multinational companies to advertise their milk formula for infants 6 months and above.
According to the group, decreased exclusive breastfeeding for infants from birth to 6 months old as well as decreased practice of breastfeeding among young children has also been shown to cause a 10-fold increase in diarrheal
mortality. Conversely, increased breastfeeding rate is directly correlated with decreased mortality rate
among infants and young children.