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 Gertrude, thanks for posting and congratulations on yor new baby. It soulds like you are doing a great job and doing everything right. Please dont worry if the dosing time was a little different :)
Hello, my baby tested negative after birth ,they gave him nevirapine and I didn’t give him at the exact time but he was drinking. They are any chance that he will be infected? He is also drinking formula milk.
Hi there, congratulations on your new baby. It is great that you are doing so well on your meds as this is also good for your baby too. As different countries use different ways to treat newborn babys, and this also related yto you history, please ask you health worker about the specific meds. In the UK, for example. using nevirapine only is sometimes good.
Please see this link for more information about how this varies between countries:
https://i-base.info/qa/factsheets/infant-meds-when-the-mother-is-living-with-hiv
My baby is 8 days old and im a viral supressed mother, he is taking nevirapine only. It is enough to stop the transmission of hiv
Hi Siba, congratulation on your new baby.
For these questions please talk to your health worker about the different options. Although it might be easy to swithc to formula milk now, if your viral load is undetectable, it might also be possible to use breast and formula milk.
The choice might be different depending on your personal circumstances which I why I am sorry that I can’t give you a specific answer. This varies for different countries too.
Hi,my baby is 2 weeks old and im breastfeeding and she is taking azt, she is always eating if she is awake and cries a lot so i feel like she does not get enough milk. Can i stop breastfeeding and start using formular before 6 weeks ends. I will not mix feed, i will just alternate with formular going forward