Penny asks, " Does anyone know where I could access the following
information for an = article that has to be written? Survival benefits of
breastfeeding in HIV exposed and HIV infected = infants from the Italian
Registry or from any other studies."

Good Luck, Penny! I have been surveying the literature looking for survival
data for several years and have been unable to locate any studies like the
one you describe. In addition, there are no studies documenting the natural
history of infants born to HIV+ mothers with no interventions. There is some
information that HIV- infants born to HIV+ mothers have a higher infant
mortality rate than that of the general population, but it does not control
for SES, education, and other factors that might influence mortality. Since
the vast majority of the women who are HIV+ are in the bottom quartile
socially and economically, generally have little or no education and live in
areas with few resources and high disease burdens, it is logical that
infants born in these circumstances would have higher mortality rates. One
of these studies is in the US, but the bottom quartile SES applies to HIV+
women and infant mortality rates in general here too. 

I would suggest that the best you could do is to look at the references from
the WHO recommendations for infant feeding in the context of HIV/AIDS and
cite their studies documenting the survival benefits of breastfeeding.
Unfortunately, none of the references in their recommendations address this
issue and in fact they don't support the recommendations and rely on the
broad assumption that a reduction is transmission translates into improved
survival. The evidence does not support that.  

Please let us know what you find,
Cathy

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