Duration of breast feeding and outcome of HIV-exposed infants seen at a tertiary health facility in Sokoto

ABSTRACT

Background: Appropriate infant feeding is still a challenge to HIV-positive mothers especially in the developing world despite their desire to breast feeding beyond the WHO recommended 12 months' duration. Objective: To determine the duration of breast feeding and correlate with outcome of HIV-exposed infants in UDUTH, Sokoto. Methods: This descriptive observational study was conducted among HIV-exposed infants attending Paediatric ART(PMTCT) clinic, UDUTH, Sokoto. The demographics, infant post-exposure prophylaxis, duration of breast feeding and results of early infant diagnosis (EID) of the infants using HIV-DNA PCR machine; and maternal highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) history were documented. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 24.0. A p-value of ≤0.05 was taken as significant. Results: One hundred and sixty-three HIV-positive mother-infant pairs were studied, 103(61.7%) of the HIV-positive mothers were aged 25-34 years, 105(62.9%) were of lower socio-economic class and 94(56.3%) had informal education. One hundred and fifteen (62.5%) were on TDF/3TC/EFV and 143 (85.6%) were on HAARTs prior to the index pregnancy. One hundred and sixty-three of the HIV-exposed infants studied were breast-fed and 165 (98.8%) had nevirapine as infant PEP. The mean duration of breast feeding among HIV-exposed infants was 13.2(±3.5) months with a range 6 ­ 20 months. Ninety-eight (60.1%) infants were breastfed beyond 12months. All the HIV-exposed infants were not infected at the end of breastfeeding for 12 months or more. Conclusion: Majority of the HIV-positive mother's breastfed beyond WHO recommended 12 months and their infants were uninfected. This may support the upward review of the duration of breast feeding of HIV-exposed infants in our community