Two studies presented at the International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention in Sydney indicate that the use of antiretroviral therapy appears to dramatically reduce the chances of breastfeeding women with HIV transmitting the virus to their infants. Until now, most studies to prevent mother to child transmission have concentrated on the effects of providing drug antiretroviral therapy during the time of delivery and during the immediate post-partum period. This does not address the problem of what to feed the child after it is born; breastmilk from an infected mother or a breast milk substitute?

When the mother is HIV-infected, breastfeeding does carries a risk of transmission of the virus to the nursing child. These studies recognize this dilemma and demonstrate that providing drug therapy while breastfeeding can reduce the viral load in breast milk and lower the rates of transmission. It isn’t clear however, how well the antiretroviral therapy will be able to reduce viral load in the milk overtime. The best case scenario is to have a total suppression of the virus within the breastmilk. Overall, these new studies shed light, suggesting that antiretroviral therapy does prove to be highly protective during the critical breastfeeding period.