Hi Everybody:
   This in response to Ilene's sad post about HIV. Please remember that the
WHO still recommends BF in situations where the risk of not BF outweighs the
risk of HIV.
In the USA, the majority of women are HIV-; we can scare ourselves silly if we
focus on things like "every single pregnant woman has had unprotected sex" and
the like. Far more babies are likely to get sick and die from lack of
breastfeeding than are likely to contract AIDS. Also remember that human milk
can be pasteurized, or obtained from milk banks, so that any mother can still
provide the best food for her baby. So ABM is not the  only answer. The
research is still coming in about HIV from around the world....there are so
many quirky things about HIV transmission, such as the first twin born
becoming HIV+ but not the second twin. Other research is looking at limiting
the time of breastfeeding to reduce transmission. Still other research shows
that transmission is related to onset of infection; i.e. if the mother
contracts the virus during the pregnancy, her viral load is higher than if she
had been positive for a while. A study in the American J of Public Health (vol
87, no 6 June 1997 pp 926-931) states clearly that avoidance of all
breastfeeding by the whole population always produces the worst outcome. HIV+
moms who stop breastfeeding earlier than later have fewer adverse infant
outcomes.
       So please, Ilene, take a deep breath and look at the whole picture of
the research that is out there. Remember that Edith White was quoted in the
Times last summer  on the subject of HIV and that Dr. Lawrence Gartner at the
LLLI conference in DC said from the podium that he could not find, after an
extensive search, any of the references she was citing. Warmly, Nikki