In celebration of National Breastfeeding Awareness Month, an online support group, Breastfeeding Pinays, is hosting Hakab Na! 2015 on Aug. 1, at 500 Shaw Centrum, Mandaluyong City.

Hakab Na! aims to educate the people on the health and economic benefits of breastfeeding, promote the importance of providing proper support to breastfeeding mothers and create a breastfeeding nation.

The main feature of Hakab Na! will be the Big Latch On, an international activity where mothers from different places around the world latch on their babies.

In last year’s Hakab Na!, the Philippines was able to log 1,772 mother-and-baby tandems breastfeeding in the cities of Bacolod, Cagayan de Oro, Cebu, Davao, Iloilo and Manila.

Hakab Na! 2015 is expected to be bigger as it will add 11 locations in Alabang, Aklan, Baguio-Benguet, Bulacan, Dumaguete, Isabela, Laguna, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Zambales and Singapore.

Hakab Na! will also highlight breastfeeding mothers who work outside their homes.

It is possible for working mothers to breastfeed their babies. On July 27, 2009, the Expanded Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009 or Republic Act No. 10028 was passed “to encourage, protect and support the practice of breastfeeding.”–Angelica Faye Tolosa