A speech coding method of significantly reducing error propagation due to voice packet loss, while still greatly profiting from a pitch prediction or Long-Term Prediction (LTP), is achieved by limiting or reducing a pitch gain only for the first subframe or the first two subframes within a speech frame. The method is used for a voiced speech class; a pitch cycle length is compared to a subframe size to decide to reduce the pitch gain for the first subframe or the first two subframes within the frame. Speech coding quality loss due to the pitch gain reduction is compensated by increasing a bit rate of a second excitation component or adding one more stage of excitation component only for the first subframe or the first two subframes within the speech frame.