Abstract:
Background: Studies have shown that in the absence of any intervention, between 25-45 % of
HIV positive women living in resource poor settings transmit HIV to their babies during
pregnancy, delivery, or through breastfeeding. The HIV transmission rate is estimated to be
about 5-10 % during pregnancy, between 10-20 % during labor and delivery, and another 10-20
% during postnatal period through breastfeeding to 24 months. There is no study which assessed
the practice of infant feeding among HIV sero-positive mothers in Addis Ababa after the recent
WHO recommendation. This study aimed to determine infant feeding practices and associated
factors among HIV positive mothers attending ART services in Addis Ababa.
Methods: Facility based cross- sectional study was conducted in all the 25 Health centers & 4
Hospitals ART service providing health centers in Addis Ababa to accomplish the sample size. A
total of 334 mother-infant pairs attending ART clinics from October 7 to November 8, 2013 were
recruited in the order of arrival. Structured interviewer administered questionnaire was used to
gather data on feeding practices and socio-demographic and other explanatory variables from
participant mothers. The data were coded, entered into Epi data version 3.1and cleaned. The data
were analyzed using SPSS for windows version 16.
RESULTS: The majority (77.8%) of the mothers experienced exclusive breast feeding, some
practiced exclusive replacement feeding (14.4%) and small proportion (7.8%) used mixed
feeding for their infants. In other words, substantial proportion (92.2%) of the HIV positive
mothers experienced safe feeding, while the remainder (7.8%) used unsafe feeding options.
On Multivariable logistic regression model, AFASS score, attending ANC visit and PNC visit
were significant positive predictors of safe infant feeding practice.
Conclusion: The results indicate behavioral change communications through ANC and PNC
should be strengthened to prevent MTCT. The AFASS criteria should be assessed very
stringently as it is very important to prevent unsafe feeding practices of infants born to HIV
positive mothers.
