UN agencies promote breastfeeding to protect babies in typhoon-hit Philippines

United Nations agencies are promoting breastfeeding to avoid unnecessary illness and deaths of children in the wake of the disaster wrought on the Philippines by Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) earlier this month.

“The estimated 12,000 babies to be born in the worst-affected areas this month need to be exclusively breastfed, meaning that they get nothing but breast milk, which protects them from potentially deadly infections,” the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a joint news release.