What is HIV? Should all mums give birth by caesarean and should babies of HIV Positive mums really not be breast fed?
Did you know that the HIV virus has never been isolated under a microscope? It is the name given to a condition whereby the body's T cells that fight infection, are drastically lowered and the person suffers colds, flu, exhaustion, sometimes sores on the genitals and other opportunistic infections caused by this lowered immune system. Sometimes the person is asymptomatic.
But what exactly HIV is, what a positive test means and whether this automatically leads to AIDS has been a subject of hot debate for years, even among world leaders.
The HIV test looks for the presence of HIV antibodies in the blood, which would indicate that the person is HIV positive. Yet in tests for other diseases, for instance, childhood diseases, a positive result would mean they are immune to the illness. The level of T cells are also checked and those with a very low level are thought to be HIV positive.
However, this is misleading as there are other factors which could cause this drop in T cells, including a recent viral infection within a few weeks of having the test, pregnancy (women who have had multiple previous pregnancies are known to have lower T cell counts) and having had a tetanus vaccination recently (this causes a drop in T cells too). Doctors are aware of the inaccuracy of the test.
Little research has been done into breast feeding and HIV Positive mothers. It is known that breast milk contains immune cells that are not present in formula milk, something I imagine would be vital to the baby of a HIV Positive mother. There are also numerous studies showing that breast fed babies don't die of cot death very often and that most of those affected by SIDS were bottle fed, that they don't surcumb to chest infections, pneumonia and meningitis as often as their bottle fed counterparts. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics is so convinced of the benefits of breast feeding that they advise mothers in third world countries who are HIV positive, to breast feed. (The American Academy of Pediatrics, policy statement on breast feeding, 1997).
In a recent case in the UK, a HIV positive mother chose to ignore the current recommendations to have a caesearean, use AZT and not breast feed. She had a home birth, refused AZT and breast fed. She was eventually court ordered to cease breast feeding or threatened with her baby being taken into care. By the time the case went to court, the baby had been breast feeding for several months, was healthy and well and did not have HIV. The family then went into hiding in order to continue breast feeding and avoid AZT.
While a lot of people might think her irresponsible, it was her right (as it was her body) to give birth how she wanted to and the AZT drugs used to treat HIV are toxic and have their own set of potentially devastating side-effects, which on a healthy newborn infant, might not be the wisest choice. While the majority of us will probably choose to go with the recommendations to lower the risk of transmission, it is my opinion that those who don't should not be court ordered or prosecuted into a medical decision they are opposed to, and I definitely feel that more research should be done into breast feeding and HIV before any mother is advised not to breast feed.
