Vitamins for breastfeeding HIV positive mums boost babies
21 April 2003
Julian Meldrum


21 April 2003
Julian Meldrum

"The latest report from a Tanzanian study on giving vitamin supplements to breastfeeding women has found that providing multivitamins (B, C and E) to the women raised CD4 counts in their babies, regardless of HIV status, reducing the babies’ risk of diarrhoeal disease. The findings are published in the latest edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases

Previous reports of the same study found that providing vitamins B, C and E to these mothers significantly reduced both HIV transmission to the babies and mortality in the first two years of life, when the mothers’ immunological or nutritional status was poor. In contrast, providing vitamin A to the mothers appeared to increase HIV transmission rates and was therefore discontinued, although it now seems it reduced the risk of pneumonia among the babies whose mothers were given vitamin A. ..."