[pronut-hiv] Breastfeeding and maternal disease progression and mortality

["ProNut-HIV" <pronut-hiv@healthnet.org>]

Breastfeeding and maternal HIV-1 disease progression
and mortality
Gilda Sedgh, Donna Spiegelman, Ulla Larsen, Gernard Msamanga
And Wafaie W. Fawzi

AIDS 2004, 18:1043*1049

Objective: To examine the association between breastfeeding and disease progression among HIV-infected women in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Design and methods: Cohort study design with Cox proportional hazards models.
Results: The relative risk of death comparing women who recently had been breastfeeding to those who were not breastfeeding was 0.47 (95% confidence interval, 0.18*1.20). Neither breastfeeding status nor the duration of exclusive or partial breastfeeding was associated with HIV-1 disease progression, represented by death or development of a low CD4 cell count, anemia or excessive weight loss, in multivariate analyses. These associations remained insignificant when women with relatively low
and high CD4 cell counts were analyzed separately.
Conclusion: There is insufficient evidence to support the hypothesis that breastfeeding is detrimental to the health of HIV-infected women.