ILOILO City – Advocate group Breastfeeding Ilonggas urged breastfeeding mothers to join this year’s “Hakab Na!” – an annual gathering of breastfeeding mothers – for a simultaneous one-minute latch on Aug. 27.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, however, this year’s Hakab will be done online, according to Adhara Sebuado, Breastfeeding Ilonggas co-founder and chair.
Hakab Na!, the local version of the “The Big Global Latch On” promoting breastfeeding, is part of the National Breastfeeding Awareness Month celebration and World Breastfeeding Week observance with the theme, “Step Up for Breastfeeding: Educate and Support”.
The month-long celebration kicked off on Aug. 8 with a breastfeeding art exhibit dubbed “Ilig sang Kabuhi” at SM City Iloilo.
“Our goal is to normalize breastfeeding in public,” said Sebuado.
Through the Hakab event, her group hopes to acquaint breastfeeding mothers and advocates which each other and share to the world the importance and beauty of giving the babies the best milk in the world.
This year, Sebuado said, they are targeting more than 100 participants.
In 2019, face-to-face Hakab Na! was able to gather more than 230 breastfeeding mothers at Robinsons Place Pavia in Pavia, Iloilo.
Breastfeeding is one of the most effective ways to ensure child health and survival, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
However, nearly two out of three infants are not exclusively breastfed for the recommended six months — a rate that has not improved in two decades, WHO lamented.
Breast milk is the ideal food for infants, according to WHO. It is safe, clean and contains antibodies which help protect against many common childhood illnesses.
Scientific studies have shown that breast milk provides all the energy and nutrients that the infant needs for the first months of life, and it continues to provide up to half or more of a child’s nutritional needs during the second half of the first year, and up to one third during the second year of life./PN
