Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara. (File photo by ROMEO BUGANTE / Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)
Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara has filed a bill seeking to ensure “womb-to-crib” health care for mothers and their newborn children to prevent malnutrition.
According to a news release issued on Saturday, the bill – titled “First 1,000 Days Act” – proposes to provide a comprehensive health care program that would cover the whole nine months of a mother’s pregnancy and her baby’s first two years.
“The program will develop and implement a practical and comprehensive health care plan for pregnant and lactating women as well as provide health and nutrition for their children from 1 to 1,000 days,” Angara said.
He described the first 1,000 days covering a child’s nine months in her mother’s womb and two years after birth as a “period extremely crucial to a child’s fair start in life.”
The senator cited a 2015 policy brief by the Philippine Legislators Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD) saying that getting proper nutrition in the first 1,000 days is crucial “for the physical growth of children, a pathway out of poverty for poor households, and a driver of growth for countries.”
The PLCPD brief further said that proper nutrition in the first 1,000 days would achieve the following:
- prevent more than one-third of child deaths per year
- improve school attainment by at least one year
- increase wages by 5 to 50 percent, reduce poverty because well-nourished children would 33 percent more likely to escape poverty as adults
- empower women to be 10 percent more likely to run their own business and break the intergenerational cycle of poverty
“The ‘First 1,000 Days Program’ under this proposed measure lays the proper foundation for the country’s future growth and development,” Angara pointed out.
Interventions under the First 1,000 Days program, Angara assured, would include vaccinations and nutritional supplements for infants, medical check-ups, and pre-natal and ante-natal counseling.
The program will be set up in every barangay by the following departments – Health, Interior and Local Government, Social Welfare and Development, and the Science and Technology, through the National Nutrition Council and the Food and Nutrition Research Institute.
Under the program, a public information drive on breastfeeding and proper hygiene will also be conducted in schools and barangay health centers.
Angara also authored the Expanded Maternity Leave Benefits Act. /atm