I have been reading the debates about HIV transmission through breastmilk with great interest. The recent study by Coutsoudis and colleagues showed that the group of infants that received both breastfeeding and other food/fluid were worst off in terms of virus transmission. The exclusively breastfed and never breasfed infants were not significantly different from each other in terms of virus transmission. Now my question is about the feeding options available to poor mothers. One option that is currently advocated/used in Africa is exclusive breastfeeding with abrupt weaning before 7 months of age. The abrupt weaning is to minimise the period of exposure to mixed feeding, which appears to be the worst scenario in this context. However, many of these babies get malnourished after abrupt weaning. What experiences do you have with abrupt weaning and how can this issue be tackled? Any useful comments are welcome! Amal Omer-Salim Nutritionist Section for International Maternal and Child Health (IMCH) Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Sweden _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html