MANILA, Philippines—The “Breastfeeding Queen of the Philippines” is—quite ironically—not a Filipino.

She is German Dr. Susann Roth, who was feted by the Children for Breastfeeding Inc. (CfB) last week, for championing the cause despite aggressive marketing campaigns of multinational milk companies.

Roth, a 32-year-old mother of two baby girls, is aware of the paradox that a foreigner has become the “face” of the local drive to promote breast-feeding.

But she is probably what the campaign needs to convince Filipino mothers that breast milk is still—and always has been—the best for their babies.

“The Philippines still has a long way to go in terms of accepting breast-feeding,” Roth tells the Philippine Daily Inquirer in an interview.

The problem, she says, is deeply ingrained in the Filipino psyche, thanks to years of generally deceptive advertising by foreign milk companies.

No better substitute

Roth is an emergency medicine specialist from Heidelberg. After reading volumes of medical literature on breast-feeding, she says there’s still no better substitute for mother’s milk—especially during the first two years of life.

That’s why she had no problem making a commitment never to endorse any milk formula in her lifetime, a key requirement in the CfB award, “Breastfeeding Queen of the Philippines,” handed out by President Macapagal-Arroyo in Malacañang.

Roth says she once turned down a P2-million offer to appear in a milk formula ad. The company had seen her previous TV commercial for a diaper brand and thought the 6-foot-tall, part-time model was the perfect choice.

She says she has better things to do than to listen to false promises of milk companies.

Doctors in on it, too

Roth says she experienced the problem first-hand when she had her first baby, Joelle Sophie, nearly two years ago. Her second child, Lillian Julie, is four months old.

A routine consultation with a local gynecologist gave her the sense that in this part of the world, breast-feeding was a thing of the past.

Go on, give your child milk formula, she was told.

Roth came to realize that in these parts, doctors, who are supposed to know better, seem blinded by the prevailing misinformation against the benefits of breast-feeding.

To some extent, she says it’s probably because some physicians are not exactly averse to accepting generous favors, usually in the form of seminar sponsorships, from giant milk companies.

Like-minded souls

Roth admits that breast-feeding is harder to do in the Philippines than in Germany.

There is a government support program for breast-feeding mothers in Germany, she says, while the Philippines has none.

When she and her husband moved to Manila in 2005, “I went looking for a lactation consultant and couldn’t find any,” she recalls.

Until she found the CfB advocacy group. Meeting like-minded souls was a source of great comfort for Roth. It was also with the CfB that she realized the extent of commercial pressure and misinformation about breast-feeding in the Philippines.

That’s when she decided to leave her medical practice and work full-time as a public health advocate. She is completing her masters degree in public health at the University of the Philippines.

“I realized I could make a difference in the area of public health,” Roth says.

Appalling figures

Some 16,000 Filipino children under 5 years old die annually because they are not breast-fed, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which advocates exclusive breast-feeding within the first six months from birth.

Babies reared on milk formula products are “7 to 25 times” more likely to die of diarrhea and “5 to 50 times” more likely to contract pneumonia than breast-fed infants.

The WHO says Filipinos spend some P21.5 billion yearly on formula milk—an amount they could have used for other necessities if they had breast-fed their babies.

Roth says educating people about breast-feeding is best done in the grassroots level. She hopes to dispel myths on breast-feeding when she visits slum communities in Tondo and Cavite.

For instance, many women turn to milk formula because they think they do not have enough milk. Not true! she says.

The majority of women produce more than enough milk. The usual reason the baby does not get enough milk is because he is poorly latched onto the breast.

This is why it is so important to show the mother proper positioning and timing, Roth says. Breast-feeding is also more difficult at first, but becomes easier later.

Working mothers

Another common complaint, especially from working mothers, is that they do not have time to breast-feed.

Roth says one solution is for companies to allow a longer maternity leave of say, up to six months.

Working mothers have successfully continued to breast-feed and work, she adds. It just takes some planning, family and workplace support, and a breast pump.

In her case, Roth says she found a way to do most of her work in her Makati residence. She is a consultant for quality management for a number of local companies while her husband runs a consultancy firm.

Roth has two nannies, one each for her two babies, but swears she’s a “hands-on” mom.

“One important thing about breast-feeding is that you have to be available whenever your baby needs it,” she says. “This way, you develop a strong bond which will help in your baby’s development.”

Commitment

Roth says mothers need not be shy breast-feeding in public despite the relative obscurity of breast-feeding stations in the country. There are a few at the SM malls.

She says the idea is not necessarily weird, recalling one instance when she had to breast-feed her baby while onboard a Manila-bound plane from the Middle East.

Flanked by two hulking male OFWs, she got lots of help from her seatmates. One of them even covered her with a makeshift curtain.

It all depends on how committed the mother is to breast-feed her child, she says. If there’s a will, there’s a way.