By Sade Oguntola
EXECUTIVE Secretary, Oyo State Agency for the Control of AIDS, Dr Lanre Abass, has said that it is a misconception that mothers living with HIV who are adherent to HIV treatment cannot breastfeed their babies exclusively for six months and continue breastfeeding along with complementary foods until at least their first birthday.
Dr Abass spoke at the 2024 Breastfeeding Week commemoration by the Association of Women Living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (ASWHAN) in partnership with the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+) through Last Mile Grants. It was with the theme, “Closing Gaps: Breastfeeding Support for All.”
He stated that research has shown that exclusive breastfeeding is the best option to feed babies of mothers living with HIV in a bid to save them from dying from diarrhoea due to poor hygiene in Nigeria.
Dr Abass declared that, “bottle feeding will expose them to conditions that can lead to the baby being sick and dying. A lot of babies die before they are six months old. There is no point preventing transmission of HIV, and then these babies are now later dying from other things like diarrhoea and respiratory diseases.”
According to him, a child’s physical and mental development depend greatly on the first 1000 days of their existence, beginning at conception, which highlights the significance of making sure all infants receive the full benefits of breast milk.
Coordinator of ASWHAN in Oyo State, Mrs Victoria Olagoke, advocated for the government and private sectors to develop policies that support all nursing mothers, irrespective of their work, to have more than six months of paid maternity leave and paid time off for breastfeeding.
She asserts that because breast milk is the best food for an infant’s growth and development and because it saves money, families should assist breastfeeding mothers and foster an environment that is supportive of them.
Mrs Racheal Ike, a counsellor from the Infectious Disease Institute at the University College Hospital, said in her keynote address that breast milk is nature’s food for the baby, and breastfeeding is convenient, protects the mother from cancer, supports the woman’s body recovery after childbirth, and is a form of contraceptive.
Mrs Ike, however, called for increased support of fathers and the family to close the gap on the number of children missing out on exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continuing breastfeeding till the age of two years for proper growth and brain development of Nigeria’s children.
Country representative of Damien Foundation representative, Mrs Ivy Sule, who was represented by Modupe Ariyo, urged mentor mothers to help educate pregnant women in the community to register with proper antenatal care centres, with support services especially for breastfeeding.
She declared that a lot of women are unaware of the importance of exclusive breastfeeding, and mentee mothers should help bridge this gap and expose HIV-positive mothers to health education on how they can breastfeed their babies too.
Head of Prevention and Community Services of APIN Public Health Initiative, Mrs Bola Thompson, in her remark called for increased support to close the gap in breastfeeding to ensure adequate nutrition of children, particularly with the economic situation in Nigeria.
Thompson, who was represented by Anisiobi Elozona, assured of the organisation’s unwavering commitment to halting the spread of HIV from women to their unborn children during pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation.
“We advise mothers to adhere to the set-down process so that their infants are HIV negative by the time they become 18 months old and are tested at last. We want to have an HIV-free generation. And it starts with our mothers. So, we will continue to support that,” she added.
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