HIV Risk Reduced During Breastfeeding By Extending Drug Regimens
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Malawi College of Medicine have found that extending routine antiretroviral regimens can significantly reduce the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission while breastfeeding. Typically in developing countries, babies born to mothers with HIV receive a single dose of nevirapine and a one-week dose of zidovudine to prevent transmission of HIV from the mother to baby.
It's a bit tricky. In resource-rich countries like the United States, it is not recommended (per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) for to HIV-positive mothers to breastfeed at all; if a mother does not breastfeed, it won't increase mortality. In resource-poor nations, the risk of mortality from infection is much higher, so breastfeeding is still recommended. Taha E. Taha, MD, PhD, senior author of the study states, "We know that breastfeeding in the first 6 months of life is extremely important for the child’s health and survival, especially in resource poor countries. However, women with HIV face a difficult choice because they are also putting the child at risk for HIV. Our findings clearly show that extended drug regimens can significantly reduce the risk of HIV transmission from breastfeeding.”
Comments
You wrote, “it is not recommended (per the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention) for to HIV-positive mothers to breastfeed at all, if a mother does not breastfeed, it won’t increase mortality.”
The CDC’s recommendation is based on what information? The belief is that all pregnant mothers in the US have easy access to our health care system. I would dispute this notion. Infants who are born to poor and African-American families have 2-3 times higher infant mortality rates than white infants. Poor women who are African-American are the least likely to breastfeed. The safety of infant formula is predicated on ease of access to health care systems because infant formula is statisitically an increased risk for disease and death. Having worked with poor populations in the South, I would say that not all people in poverty have ease of access to health care. There are studies that show a relationship between not breastfeeding and higher infant mortality rates. In my county in Florida in 2006, no infant died of hiv/aids, but infants died from pneumonia, gastrointestinal diseases, diarrhea, SIDS, all largely preventable with exclusive breastfeeding.