Breast milk best for evacuee babies

She lost her year-old son in the Dec. 17 flash flood, but 22-year-old Elsa Iyog Echavez has maintained her lactation so infants who have survived the devastation can enjoy the luxury of mother’s milk.

“I want other children to cope well (with the disaster) because I know how difficult it is,” said Echavez, who stays with her husband Bryan at the evacuation center in Santa Felomina Elementary School in Iligan City.

Since Dec. 26, Echavez has been taking a daily dose of vitamins provided by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) to increase her lactation, which can go on for the next six months.

She has been pumping out milk and has it stored in a refrigerator provided by Unicef in the evacuation camp.

She still looks forward to producing more. Her milk will be useful for infants who lost their mothers in the flood and those whose mothers have to leave the evacuation center during the day in order to earn money.

According to Trevor Clark, Unicef chief for Mindanao, the agency was encouraging mothers to continue feeding their babies and young children with breast milk for long-term health.

Clark explained that studies of disaster situations throughout the world had found that mothers who forgo breast-feeding, supposedly only during the emergency situation, ended up using infant formula even in the postdisaster and recovery periods.

By not drawing on breast milk, lactation was reduced or completely stopped if the situation was prolonged.

Breast milk is still the safest food for infants during such emergency, Clark pointed out.

He said that in the aftermath of natural disasters, it was normal to expect that there might not be a reliable supply of clean and safe drinking water needed to prepare milk from infant formula.

That’s why it is important to identify sources of breast milk, especially those near the disaster area, Clark said.

In its report on Dec. 28, 2011, the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-Ocha) noted that following the killer-floods in Cagayan de Oro City, “donations of milk products (infant formula, other kinds of milk, baby bottles) are being reported in almost all evacuation centers …”

UN-Ocha said this was a “violation of national and international codes and the Department of Health policy against donations of milk products.”

“No report of milk distribution has been noted by the city health office of Iligan,” it said.

Distinct needs

Experts from the Unicef and the UN  Population Fund (UNFPA) have encouraged disaster relief workers overseeing evacuation camps to inventory pregnant and lactating women, as well as infants, because they have special needs apart from the general flood-affected population.

So far, the UNFPA has registered 207 pregnant women and 158 lactating women in 12 evacuation camps in Cagayan de Oro.

On Thursday, as part of its registration efforts, the UNFPA held a medical mission for pregnant and lactating women in Cagayan de Oro. It distributed hygiene kits.

Women in their third trimester of pregnancy will be given clean delivery kits in case they have emergency childbirth inside the evacuation center.

Echavez’s situation was discovered by teachers during their rounds in the evacuation center as volunteer relief workers.

Almost a week after the disaster, Echavez experienced painful swelling of her breasts. “Right then, I severely missed my son. I thought that if he were only here, he could have lavished on my milk, and in return, I would not have that swelling,” she related, tearfully.

Already teething, Echavez’s son Emmanuel, preferred his mother’s milk over porridge.

Hoped-for child

Emmanuel turned a year old last Dec. 4. “We asked God for him,” said Echavez, a Born Again Christian, who married when she was 18.

Echavez chose to deliver Emmanuel in General Santos City so her mother could look after her.

It was a cesarian procedure as Echavez had not experienced labor pains 18 days way past the expected date of delivery. Emmanuel stayed at the neonatal intensive care unit for a week before Echavez could have him beside her.

“He was the answer to our constant prayers (for a child). So, I got his name from the Bible,” Echavez said. (Emmanuel in Hebrew means “God is with us.”)

Echavez gave up a job as saleslady in a department store and became a full-time mother. Her husband sells peanuts for a living, apart from the meager income from a host of coconut trees planted on a land inherited from his parents.

Hopeful fate

Constant prayers for a hopeful fate allows Echavez to come to terms with her family’s tragic loss.

Her family was asleep in Barangay Barinaut in Iligan when they were awakened by the rising cold, waist-deep waters. Unable to flee through the door, they escaped by destroying the roof.

Echavez was firmly clutching Emmanuel as the concrete house was crumbled by the raging waters. The roof was carried away toward the Mandulog River. An uprooted papaya tree fell and separated mother and child.

In the morning, Echavez and Bryan hung on coconut trees; the body of Emmanuel was found in a mangrove area off Bayug Island.

Today, Bryan prevents Echavez from getting near children, especially those of Emmanuel’s age, because they would only make her cry.

Asked if they still hope for another child, Echavez replied: “If God wills it.”