The overall purpose of this guideline is to improve the HIV-free survival of HIV-exposed infants by providing guidance on appropriate infant feeding practices and use of ARV drugs for mothers living with HIV and by updating WHO-related tools and training materials.
The guideline addresses four aspects of infant feeding in the context of HIV:
the duration of breastfeeding by mothers living with HIV;
interventions to support infant feeding practices by mothers living with HIV;
what to advise when mothers living with HIV do not exclusively breastfeed; and
what to advise when mothers living with HIV do not plan to breastfeed for 12 months.
The guideline informs national policy-makers in health ministries and local programme managers on what may be relevant for national policies and programmes, including health worker training; it provides guidance to health-care providers, researchers and clinicians involved in managing pregnant women and mothers living with HIV at various levels of health care; and it updates development partners that may be providing financial and/or technical support for maternal, newborn and child health programmes. It will also inform revisions to current WHO training and reference materials, including: Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (WHO, 2016a); Infant and young child feeding counselling: an integrated course (WHO & UNICEF, 2006); Essential newborn care course (WHO, 2010a); Pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum and newborn care: a guide for essential practice (WHO et al., 2015); and A training course for community health workers: caring for newborns and children in the community (WHO, 2015).
This guideline requires appropriately training and developing the capacity of health-care workers, to supply them with the necessary skills and job aids and provide adequate supervision and oversight. Systematic monitoring of the programme will be needed for ensuring success and for identifying and documenting challenges to implementation.
