DAVAO CITY -- The Department of Health in Southern Mindanao has taken advantage of the melamine crisis hounding China-made milk, including infant formulas, to push its breastfeeding campaign.

Paulyn Jean Ubial, DoH regional director, said the discovery of melamine in milk produced in China highlighted the importance of feeding children with breast milk.

"If anything, what's good about melamine is that we see this as an opportunity to strengthen our advocacy to promote breastfeeding as against formula milk," Ubial said.

In the region, Ubial said the DoH had partnered with malls and other establishments for the putting up of breastfeeding stations.

Some malls here have established breastfeeding stations.

She said the stations were designed to convince mothers to breastfeed their children while in the workplace or in malls.

Ubial said the breastfeeding station setup was to give mothers and infants a friendly environment.

She said government hospitals in the region have also strictly implemented a no-bottle feeding children policy and that nurses and hospital workers were ordered to confiscate milk bottles.

"Breast milk is naturally safe. And breastfeeding is naturally good both for the mothers and their children," Ubial said.

She said breast milk had also been proven superior over milk formulas and that "it changes as the need of the children changes."

Ubial said if a child was premature, the mother would produce milk that would satisfy his or her health requirements.

But what sets breast milk apart from formula milk is that it could never get contaminated, she said.

Breast milk, unlike manufactured milk from cows, does not contain excessive protein that could be harmful to children, Ubial also said.

"Mag-breast milk na lang [Just use breast milk] because you are assured that you are feeding your child something that does not contain harmful chemicals. Really, there is no best formula to replace breast milk," she said.