Gearing up to improve exclusive breastfeeding practices in South Africa.

South Africa has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates on the African continent. Globally, just 44% of infants are breastfed soon after birth, and 40% of those less than six months old are exclusively breastfed. To improve infant nutrition by 2025, the United Nations established targets to eliminate malnutrition and increase exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) rates to at least 50%.

Psychosocial barriers and enablers of exclusive breastfeeding: lived experiences of mothers in low-income townships, North West Province, South Africa.

Background: Despite national efforts to promote exclusive breastfeeding (EBF), South Africa's EBF rate is only 32 %. The aim of this study was to examine the rate of EBF discontinuation and the lived experiences of breastfeeding mothers at postnatal time points 3-14 days, 4-8 weeks, 10-14 weeks and 20-24 weeks.

Methods: This community-based mixed-methods study collected data within a prospective cohort study on sociodemographics, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and the Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale-Short Form (BSES-SF) at 6-8 weeks with infant feeding data collected at 4-8, 10-14 and 20-24 weeks from 159 mothers living in low income areas.

HIV and infant feeding: issues in developed and developing countries.

Women in developed countries who are human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive generally feed their infants formula to avoid virus transmission via breastfeeding. However, for most of the world's women who are HIV positive, the choice of infant feeding method is not so clear. Poor socioeconomic and living conditions place infants on breast milk substitutes at higher risk of non-HIV infectious diseases as compared with breastfed infants.