Trends of early infant feedings practices after counseling in infant born to HIV positive women in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

UNLABELLED

The objective is to describe the trends of infant feedings choices in HIV context after infant feeding counseling. Descriptive retrospective study: Infant feeding counseling (IFC) sessions were offered to HIV pregnant women by the same team of counselors from April 2008 to December 2012. Counseling content was promoting either exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) or exclusive formula feeding (EFF) prior to 2010. Later on, versus EBF+ antiretroviral (ARV) drug given either to the mother or the infant or EFF was the gold standard. Mixed feeding was prohibited. Infants feeding were practices recorded at the first post natal visit.

MAIN MEASUREMENT

rate of EBF/ EFF per year and period. We included a total of 1114 live-born babies. During the five year the overall rate of EBF and EFF stood at 41% and 59% respectively. The rate of EBF/EFF was recorded as follow: varies from 25/75% in year one to 52/48% in year five(p ≤ 0.001). The rate of mixed was virtually cancelled during the same period, 3/237 (1.2%) in year one to period 1/165 (0.6%) in the latest period. In conclusion, in Yaoundé, there is a slight increase in breastfeeding rate among HIV exposed infants during the first two months of life. Further investigations are required to confirm this tendency and analyze the new features of breastfeeding practices.