Knowledge and Practice of Infant Feeding Amongst HIV Infected Mothers Attending the Early Infant Diagnosis/Well Baby Clinic in University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City, Nigeria

Introduction: Mother-to-child transmission of HIV (MTCT) represents a major threat to the gains in child health achieved during the last decades and is a huge public health problem in HIV-affected populations. When no interventions are in place to reduce MTCT of HIV, an estimated 5 to 20 percent of transmission will occur through breastfeeding.  

Objective: To assess the knowledge and practice of infant feeding amongst HIV infected mothers attending the Early Infant Diagnosis/Well Baby Clinic.

Methods: This was a descriptive, cross-sectional study among the total population of HIV infected mothers attending the Early Infant Diagnosis/Well Baby Clinic in U.B.T.H, Benin-City. A pre-tested, interviewer-administered, semi-structured questionnaire was the tool for data collection. Data analysis was by computer and level of significance was set at p < 0.05.

Results: A total of 120 respondents with a mean age of 30.7± 4.48 years participated in the study. All the respondents were aware of feeding options available to an infant of HIV infected mother and majority (80.0%) cited health workers as their major source of information. Fifty-seven percent of them had good knowledge about infant feeding options. Fifty-five percent and 37.5% of the respondents were aware of the benefits and risks, respectively of the available feeding options. Forty-five percent practiced replacement feeding while 37.5% and 17.5% practiced exclusive breast feeding and mixed feeding, respectively. Half of the respondents identified health workers’ advice as the major influencing factor on their choice of feeding.

Majority of them were successfully implementing their chosen feeding option and baby’s well-being was the major factor influencing the implementation of their choice of feeding.

Conclusion: Knowledge and practice of infant feeding in the context of HIV is sub-optimal in the studied population. Health care workers should ensure access to individualized informed choice of infant feeding based on national guidelines.