Sorry to hear about the sad demise of a crusader for breastfeeding, Dr.
Natividad Clavanao. Convey our condolence and deep respect to her family,
who ever meet her and known her will remember her for a long time.  

Best wishes,
Zafrullah, Bangladesh

Dear Dr. Clavano,

You have lived a great life, an inspiration for us whom you left behind to continue the struggle for the rights of mothers and babies for the protection of breastfeeding.

Most admirable was your being a doctor- warrior who spoke strongly against the abuses of the multinational milk companies in either media interviews or in any arena of learning. You have reached 2 Senates to testify on the unethical milk marketing correlating your intensive research studies that bespeaks of bottlefeeding menace that wreak thousands of lives. The first one was at the USA Senate Inquiry under Senator Ted Kennedy 3 decades ago and lately at the Philippine Senate on the Milk Code Inquiry.

I can never forget how you bravely told the story on how Nestle officials tried to bribe you in Geneva meeting in exchange for stopping your breastfeeding research study that became a global reference. And how you rejected them in disgrace.

Also, how you kept saying that the enormous work you have done was first recognized by the international community and only after that the local recognition came later.

God is the witness to your valuable work.

I am blessed to have worked with you at the last trainings you gave for the UNICEF initiated testing of the breastfeeding manual in Tagaytay and Davao 2 years ago. I vividly remembered your advise with regards to poster making addressed to me and Jing in your house in Baguio: "Mapaiba naman" (make it different). You showed an article from the Inquirer about ads impact. Then you got some banner photos of breastfeeding mothers and remarked that " sawa na ang public seeing the same photos" and you brought out the slide where yellowish milk colostrum drips and you said," tingnan mo this has an impact, people will pay attention to this precious life saving mother's milk" . I told myself that if I got the chance with funds, indeed I will make use of this colostrum poster and create one for the public.

And how you pointed to me while I was giving lecture on breastfeeding and working women management, you corrected me that there is no need to sterilize the cup in keeping the preserved breastmilk. The cup just needs to be washed with soap and water and kept clean. You emphasized to the participants that it is the artificial rubber teat that is the culprit of contamination.

In Davao, I could sense the frailness of your health but you persevered and continue to 2 do things simultaneously hopping from one training to the other as resource person for the breastfeeding seminar and the nutrition event. You are a character that no one can match. Full of life despite vulnerabilities. Unafraid of giants.

As you jokingly said, " I am small but like big, look at my husband, and I like big study to undertake thousands of respondents". Dato Anwar Fazal pioneering founder of  WABA and IBFAN described you as " a tiny woman but moved mountains".

In sadness and in sympathy, we pray for your peaceful journey in heaven. Knowing fully well that you will be our  guardian angel and guide the  Supreme Court Justices  to see the pot of gold in breastfeeding not the green bucks of the milk companies and prod them to sign the passage of the final verdict on the revised IRR of the Milk Code( en toto) as Christmas gift. Sorry Dra. Clavano even if you are already in heaven you still have favors to bring for us.

Innes, on behalf of the Filipino mothers and babies and the world's activists for food- health security and sovereignty.

Virginia Thorley, Australia

We were all do much "richer" for having known Natividad Clavano and been inspired by her person and her work.  Wellstart had the pleasure of a visit from her to our headquarters in San Diego. in addition, she was able to atttend a follow-up meeting of our Asian Wellstart Associates in the early 90's. As everyone has noted, while she was small in stature, she was enormous in both spirit and committment. She was a realy trailblazer and will be missed.  It is important for the rest of us to keep moving along that trail for the benefit of the world's families.

Audrey Naylor, USA

Dr Natividad Clavano has passed away - let us remember her.

In 1975, Natividad Clavano started experimenting with what became "rooming -in". She convinced her nursing staff to break with the past, to have a complete change in routine and a total absence of feeding bottles and formula at the Baguio General Hospital in the Philippines. It was not easy, as there had been a cosy relationship with the babyfood companies (as exists in so many hospitals still now).  The first step is always the hardest, Dr Clavano told us: "How to break the stranglehold that we had allowed milk companies to have on our hospital?  I closed the door of the nursery to the milk companies. We stopped giving our babies the starter dose of infant formula.  Down came the colorful posters and calendars...  Everything that was conducive to bottle feeding was removed not only from the nursery, but from everywhere else in the hospital. I myself rejected samples and donations from the milk companies. How else could we be credible?"

Her strategy worked. In only two years, breastfeeding increased by 135%. Infant mortality decreased by 94%. Overall, clinical infections decreased by 89%. This was the study that Nestle tried to dissuade her from publishing. No wonder ! The results were damning.

Clavano not only lived on a mountain, she has moved mountains. Only a little over 5 feet tall, and ever so gentle by nature, she was tenacious in promoting breastfeeding; she showed that entrusting the baby to the mother saves lives, she showed the world that hospital routines can be changed, dramatically and relatively suddenly. Her story is in our Healthworker's Guide to the Code , in all ten editions and in all 17 languages. She is there also in a cartoon, as the angry doctor ripping company posters off the wall.

Her success became an example and an inspiration to breastfeeding promoters around the globe. On IBFAN's 10th anniversary, ten awards were given to individuals who had made outstanding contributions to the work of IBFAN and the protection of breastfeeding: Dr Clavano was one of the ten. That was in October 1989. Dr Clavano did not stop; she carried on with her mission in life well into retirement. We will miss her.
May she remain in our memory as a fighting example for all of us.

Annelies Allain, Malaysia

It is with anguish and a deep sense of loss that I received the news about the passing away of our dear friend and colleague, Dr. Clavano. My wife Ana Mabel and I composed the following personal tribute for her:

Today 3 years since we got to know you we realize once and for all that the time has really come for us to release you into the bosom of the Lord Almighty and we do so in humility and in thanksgiving for your wonderful and enchanted life. In your passing, we remember you for your beauty, your warm friendship, your deep intelligence and above all how full you have been of life, passion and ideas, and how in life you have always put the Rights and welfare of others above your own comfort. You had that simple way of giving yourself completely for the happiness of others. And in your search for justice for infants and young children, you gained international recognition and worldwide praise for your breastfeeding promotion work.

Once, every so often in our lives, we meet rare and extraordinary people who leave indelible marks in our memory and few who actually touch the core of our humanity with their own human spirit. We are very happy to say that you have been one such friend and colleague for us and for many others with whom you worked for children here and all over the world. It has been a delight knowing you and a real priviledge sharing the same podium with you sometimes. We are happy that already in life while you were still here with us, we have had the priviledge of letting you know just how high our regard and admiration has been for you and for all your achievements. Together, we have enjoyed warm light moments as well as the passion and intense advocacy and practical work for children's Rights. You have been a worldwide icon for breastfeeding and a tireless defender of the Right to food security for infants and young children. You have not lived long enough to witness in this life the verdict of the Supreme Court in the ultimate challenge in the defence of the Right to breastfeed for young Filipino children but your work continues to inspire and motivate us all. We have learned so much from you and hope that in some small way we too in our interactions with you have managed to impart some joy and happiness to you.

Thank you for your love. Thank you for your friendship. We will miss you very much. But your work lives on. Ate Sempre! A Luta Continua! Dr. Clavano descanse em paz eterna!

Dr. Nicholas Alipui, Country Representative, UNICEF Philippines

Revolution in Perinatal care - tiny woman who moved mountains :

"We allowed the companies to touch the lives of our babies, not because we did not care, but because we did not realise the consequences of granting such a privilege.   How to change all that? How to break the 'friendly' stranglehold that we had allowed the milk companies to have on our hospital?"   

Health campaigners around the globe are marking the death on October 4 th of Dr. Natividad Relucio Clavano, Chief of Paediatrics, Baguio General Hospital,  the Philippines who provided one of the important pillars of research which demonstrated the damaging impact that western medical practices can have on breastfeeding and child survival.  Her work gave foundation to a global movement which continues to save millions of lives across the globe.  

Natividad, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, was born in Manila on 1 st October 1932. She was educated at the Holy Spirit school in Manila and graduated in medicine in 1957  from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. Seventeen years later her life took a dramatic turn when she came to London to take Post-Graduate Studies in Pediatrics at the Institute of Child Health, London University. Initially keen to learn about asthma, she studied under Prof David Morley who opened her eyes to the far more urgent problems facing the underprivileged in her country - problems that were totally preventable. At that time the western medical model had become standard in the Philippines and throughout much of the developing world - babies were routinely removed from their mothers at birth, placed in a nursery and formula fed - with supplies happily provided by the milk companies. But by the time she arrived in London the consumer protests about the practices causing this particular ' commerciogenic malnutrition' had started. Morley and Ralph Hendrickse had given an interview in the New Internationalist , the War on Want report, The Baby Killer had been translated into German as Nestle Kills Babies and this had prompted Nestle to sue for libel in Switzerland.

Natividad returned home armed with practical information about how to change hospital practices and prejudices.  In a UNICEF Assignment Children report in 1981 she explained how she "closed the door of the nursery to the milk companies. We stopped giving our babies the starter dose of infant formula. Down came the colourful posters and calendars; in their place we hung the "baby killer' posters which show an emaciated baby inside a dirty feeding bottle." 

When I met her in 1989, she stressed the need to retrain medical and nursing staff - many had not seen fully breastfed babies and mistook normal breastfed stools for diarrheoa. Most importantly she also documented the results of her actions.  Her 10,000 baby study of the babies born in Baguio General Hospital between 1973 and 1977 (which Nestlé tried to suppress) showed that r ooming in (keeping mothers and babies together) and demand breastfeeding (rather than feeding to a rigid timetable) increased breastfeeding rates from 40% to 87% and reduced the rates of diarrhoea by 94% and death by 95%.

Natividad, described by Anwar Fazal (human rights leader and founder of networks such as International Baby Food Action Action (IBFAN), Pesticides Action Network and Heath Action International) as 'a tiny woman who moved mountains' continued to campaign against the formula giants and to help with training programmes. She spoke in Washington at the US Senate Inquiry in 1978 under Senator Ted Kennedy, who publicly demanded that the World Health Organization (WHO) do something about the aggressive marketing.  In 1981, three years later, the World Health Assembly adopted the landmark in consumer protection, the International Code on the Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and the began its work helping governments implement it.  In 1986 President Corazon Aquino signed into law the Philippine National Milk Code - at the time one of the toughest laws in Asia and in 1992 this was followed with  The Rooming-In and Breast-Feeding Act requiring the state to "create an environment where the basic physical, emotional, and psychological needs of mothers and infants are fulfilled through the practice of rooming-in and breastfeeding."

In June this year George Monbiot wrote in the Guardian of the ongoing struggle to close the loopholes in this law - loopholes which the companies use to continue their aggressive marketing and undermine breastfeeding. Natividad spoke in defence of the new rules at the Philippine Senate on the Milk Code Inquiry in 2005. A decision by the Supreme Court was announced on 9 th October and many, but not all of the controls on marketing that Clavano fought for were approved. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,2095675,00.html)  

Natividad's work also came to the attention of UNICEF's Executive Director Jim Grant, and contributed to the formation UNICEF's Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, and its Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding , which has become an initiative that is transforming hospital practices in 192 countries. In 2006 she received the Order of the Golden Heart with rank of Commander from P resident Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for her pioneering work in the field of pediatrics and infant feeding and for her Under-Five Clinic National Program. 

In both the UK and the Philippines the level of commercial promotion of bottle feeding is high and if we are to turn things around and put infant health before the needs of industry we will need more health workers with the honesty and courage that Natividad showed. Natividad died of a pulmonary illness, and is survived by her husband Dodong,  three sons, Greg, Guido and Graf and two grandchildren.

Natividad Relucio-Clavano, doctor, born October 1 1932; died October 4 2007 

Patti Rundall, Baby Milk Action/International Baby Food Action Network.
Prof. David. C.Morley , UK

To view the obituary that appeared in the Guardian on 14th November 2007, please click here .

To view the obituary that appeared in the Lancet  on 24th November 2007, please click here .