There was a post recently on Australian recommendations on breastfeeding by
women who are HIV+.  I realise I am rather late in replying to this, but I
hope the information is still useful to someone.

I checked the catalogue at the Lactation resource Centre today and came up
with the following statements:
In 1988, the Australian College of Paediatricians made this policy statement
"There is evidence of transmission of the virus in breast milk, and three
Australian children are known to have been infected while breast-feeding by
a mother after the child's birth, though the risk to an infant of a well
mother wiht longstanding infection is probably small.  Nevertheless, pending
further information, mothers who are antibody-positive should be discouraged
from breast feeding where formula feeding is anticipated to be safe.....The
Australian College of Paediatrics endorses the policy statement of the World
Health Organization on breast-feeding and HIV"

(There is an inconsistency here, in that the WHO policy referred to is that
of 1987 which stated "Breast-feeding should continue to be promoted,
supported and protected in both developing and developed countries.  The
overall immunologic, nutritional, psychosocial and child-spacing benefits of
breast-feeding to infants and their mothers continue to be important factors
in determining the overall health of mother and child").

The Australian College of Midwives (ACMI) produced a position statement on
HIV in 1992. It includes the following statement, "the decision whether or
not to breast feed should be based on assessment of and in consultant with
the HIV infected mother".


The question of the "three Australian children are known to have been
infected while breast-feeding by a mother after the child's birth" has been
disputed by a number of people (the best known being Maureen Minchin).  I
will forward this to Maureen (who is no mail at the moment, in case she
would like to develop this thread further).

Today at work I received a phone call from the US from Cathy Schmidt to
discuss this same issue.  She is not on Lactnet, but a friend of hers is
(the original poster on this issue?).  I could only give her a partial
answer at that time.  If her friend sees this post, would she please share
it with Cathy.  Dedication that makes you ring Australia for breastfeeding
information deserves to be rewarded!

Philippa Thomson
Melbourne, Australia