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Collections under which this article appears: HIV Infection/AIDS Medicine in Developing Countries Other nutrition and metabolism Infants

BMJ 2002;324:1474 ( 22 June )

News

Breast is still best even when HIV prevalence is high, experts say

Roger Dobson, Abergavenny

Child health specialists have urged governments and agencies not to provide free formula milk in programmes aimed at preventing mother to child HIV transmission. They say that although formula may seem to be a good idea, the consequences can be damaging.

"Free formula milk may appear to be a blessing, but while potentially decreasing the rate of postnatal transmission, it is very likely to increase morbidity and mortality from other infectious diseases, thus decreasing overall child survival," say the specialists from the University of Natal and the Child Health Group of the Africa Centre for Population Studies and Reproductive Health in a report (Health Policy and Planning 2002;17:154-60)[Medline].

They say that public health policy must promote child survival for the entire population, not a selected group of children.

The report continues: "The overwhelming majority of babies born to HIV infected women and all babies born to uninfected women will benefit from exclusive breastfeeding for about six months. Therefore, even in areas of high HIV prevalence, we believe it is more appropriate to promote exclusive breastfeeding as public health policy, and counsel individual women on infant feedings choices, rather than implement and support superficially attractive measures that offer free replacement feeds, but with potentially disastrous consequences for maternal and child health."

The report, which says that about 200000 to 350000 infants are infected by HIV each year through breast feeding, also points to estimates from Unicef that 1.5 million non-HIV related deaths a year could be prevented globally through breast feeding.

It also says that an analysis by the World Health Organization has shown that infants who are not breast fed and who receive formula or other replacement feed have a sixfold increased risk of dying in the first two months of life.

© BMJ 2002
 

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Collections under which this article appears: HIV Infection/AIDS Medicine in Developing Countries Other nutrition and metabolism Infants

Rapid Responses:

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