Question
My baby is on nevirapine and I’m breastfeeding, is my baby positive?
19 August 2016. Related: All topics, Pregnancy.
Answer
Firstly, congratulations on having your baby.
It is normal for your baby to be given a short course (4 weeks) of HIV treatment (such as nevirapine) when born. This doesn’t mean your baby is HIV positive. This will be checked later through testing. A different type of testing is also used on babies as the normal antibody test used in adults will show the baby as positive.
Our guide on pregnancy has lots more information
https://i-base.info/guides/pregnancy
In the UK, the BHIVA (British HIV Association) guidelines recommend bottle feeding.
This is because in countries where mothers can have access to to formula milk AND clean water ANDÂ bottle sterilising equipment, the risk of transmitting HIV to the baby through bottle feeding is zero. There are different recommendations for other countries though and many women breastfeed. I am not sure about the recommendations in Zambia.
This means that you are doing the best that you can to protect your baby.
However, being positive and looking after a new born baby can be hard and many people need help. Do you have much support around you to help or are you touch with good care from your doctor?
Hi Nelly,
If you don’t want your child to have traditional medicine then this is something that you’re going to need to talk about with the mother of your father. I’m not sure why the child would need it.
Hi my baby is on ilvitrim suspension and turned 3months yesterday so her fathers mother wants to give her traditional muthi, what should i do?
Hi Lizzy,
All babies need to take a short course of HIV drugs for the first four weeks of life, if their mother is HIV positive. The most likely drug will be AZT.
Please see this guide to How will I know that my baby is HIV negative.
Hi.
My son is 3 weeks and on formula and he was given azt to tk for six weeks and he tested negative at birth n we dd c section what are the are the chances of him being positive
Hi Isaac,
Please ask your doctor about this. Your doctor will explain why this is important and what the treatment is for.
Hi, my baby was giving nivarapine at birth and at 6weeks he was giving doctrim suspension. what does it mean
Hi Laura,
Its very unlikely. Has your baby already been tested? Are they on medication?
I’m a mother of a 3month old baby nd HIV+..as I was changing my baby to formula he didn’t want to take the bottle and so I changed him back to breast milk…is it possible that my baby got th virus… I’m so scarred
Hi Tebogo,
How old is your baby? Have they already been on ARVs?
M hiv pos mother and i am giving my baby fomula milk must i also give naverapine