By Asmau Ahmad
The Head of Health, Save the Children Nigeria, Dr. Abimbola Williams, said mothers living with HIV could breastfeed exclusively without transmitting the virus to the baby. Dr. Williams who made the disclosure in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, said that exclusive breastfeeding helps to strengthen the immune system of a child even when the mother was HIV positive.
According to her, exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months of a child’s life is associated with a three to fourfold decreased risk of HIV transmission compared to those fed with other foods.
She said: “What mothers don’t know is that when administering exclusive breastfeeding, the likelihood of the baby getting infected is very low. The baby is predisposed to HIV infection most times due to the status of the lumen of the intestine.
“And if the baby continues to have diarrhoea while the mother breastfeeds, the chances of the child getting infected becomes high.”
She then explained a new policy whereby HIV positive breastfeeding mothers could be placed on Antiretroviral drugs (ARV) together with the baby for a longer period in order to prevent transmission of the virus.
She said, “The Antiretroviral drugs are given to prevent the small percentage of the virus from being transmitted from mother to the baby.”
She added that the policy followed a study which found that giving HIV positive mothers a combination of antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy, delivery and breastfeeding would reduce the risk of HIV transmission to infants.
Health Reporters gathered that on November 30, 2009, WHO then released new recommendations on infant feeding by HIV-positive mothers based on this new evidence and for the first time, the world health body recommended that HIV-positive mothers or their infants should take antiretroviral drugs throughout the period of breastfeeding and until the infant is 12 months old.
This means that the child can benefit from breastfeeding with very little risk of becoming infected with HIV.
