Infant feeding buddies: a strategy to support safe infant feeding for HIV-positive mothers.

Background: Prior to 2010, the World Health Organization recommended that HIV-positive mothers exclusively breastfeed for the first 6 months of life unless replacement feeding was acceptable, feasible, affordable, sustainable, and safe. Community pressure to practice mixed feeding, lack of knowledge on safe feeding, and shame regarding HIV status discourage mothers from breastfeeding exclusively and contribute to South Africa's low exclusive breastfeeding prevalence of 7% for infants under 6 months.

Objective: This pilot study explored the feasibility of implementing a feeding buddy system to provide a mother with support to achieve her infant feeding goal.

Too little, too late: comparison of nutritional status and quality of life of nutrition care and support recipient and non-recipients among HIV-positive adults in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Objective: Compare the nutritional vulnerability, risk of malnutrition, nutritional status and quality of life (QoL) between recipients and non-recipients of nutrition care and support (NCS) of HIV-positive adults.

Methods: In 2009, a household-based cross-sectional study of HIV-positive adults, NCS recipients (n=97) and non-NCS recipients (n=203) from KwaZulu-Natal was conducted. Nutritional vulnerability (socio-economic status; food security; self-reported health status; nutritional knowledge and attitude), risk of malnutrition (nutrition assessment screening tool), anthropometry (body mass index; mid-upper arm circumference; waist-to-hip ratio) and QoL (general health; self-care; physical functioning) were compared between the two groups.