Feeding a baby while living with HIV

I discussed it with my partner and then my family back home, I came to conclusion that for the safety of the baby I will not breastfeed, I will not breastfeed, I will bottle feed and then they said that they have a, a charity that they give, give baby food to people in my condition so I was also very glad to hear about that so that helped.

Not getting up at night, I didn’t not want to wake up at night. I just want to sleep. So, if I breastfeed the baby would be there milking all the time, just how I am. Feeding isn’t giving me much of a problem, I bottle feed her. If she’s full she just sleeps the whole night.

Because I know that obviously in terms of the nutritional value it’s better than cow’s milk, isn’t it, naturally that’s how it’s supposed to be. So, I wouldn’t have wanted anything else than to give the baby what I know nutritionally is 100% better and not only that the bond, you know, between me and the baby, you know, even just the few times I connecting to each other, you know. So it was, it was a bit emotional for me, you know, that it didn’t happen.

There’s a lot of, so yeah you’ve got the colostrum in the first like three or four days of breastfeeding which is kind of like sure to sort of like boost the immune system, lowers the risk of adult diabetes and obesity and a whole list of things.

Covid because of the way that it had been changing structures around work arrangements was actually something I thought about when it came to keeping like going through with the pregnancy because it actually felt like an opportune time just given that I’m like such a professionally orientated person so it’s maybe one of the few times in my life where I was like complete location flexibility which also would translate to feeding because the women that I talked to, a lot of women ended up giving up when they were working because it was just so difficult to do, breast feeding and work in a professional job were you had to be in an office, like 9 to 5.

Just like basic things like if you were breast feeding and trying to interact with like larger society would probably feel like pretty uncomfortable and/or embarrassing, so yeah. So, it’s like the working from home definitely makes it easier to capacitate breastfeeding.

Why was that important to be able to breastfeed?

That’s all I’ve ever seen to be honest. I think yeah, I think it’s more subconsciously breastfeeding that’s all I’ve ever seen from aunties, cousins, family, that’s all I’ve ever seen so it kind of, it kind of for me is something natural to do and also of course the benefits that you get from that I was told, especially by my family, like cousins that have had children and stuff, they really advocated for breastfeeding, they fed, although they fed their babies till like they were past one which I don’t think I would, I’m going to do] yes, no the benefits of, you know, the babies milk, the especially the first six months of breastfeeding it was just better than bottle.

It’s a very natural thing to just want to feed the baby and obviously in the African community you need to breastfeed so it was preparing myself for the questions of “why aren’t you breastfeeding”, “why are you formula feeding”, and having a story ready that was my big like thing of having a story to just shut everybody up and leave me alone kind of thing because obviously we’re not gonna be talking about the diagnosis with the family and stuff like that. I remember the build up to having the baby I was panicking about those questions, and they do like to question you a lot yeah.

Regardless of my feelings of wanting to breast feed I, I couldn’t outweigh that risk potentially to her. It was kind of a non-decision really it’s just one that’s kind of automatically, obviously if I was in a position where I was in the country where I didn’t have access to clean things and I couldn’t formula feed safely that’s a different conversation but I, yeah I didn’t feel like it was a choice, it was like just wrap your head around it and get on with it kind of thing.

I was sad because I wanted to breastfeed again but then I thought well it’s my choice and I don’t want to give any risk at all to my baby. Plenty of people bottle feed the only thing I will say is in a hospital there was a lot of nurses and doctors kept pressuring me into: “why aren’t you breastfeeding, why aren’t you breastfeeding, breastfeeding is best” and I had to explain to them over and over again why I couldn’t. Which was quite hard actually because they kind of judge you almost for not trying and then until they realise why you couldn’t. But you feel bad enough anyway not being able to do it without that added pressure.

I think in the UK, I think we’ve got formula and access to formula, and I think formula is good enough. Yeah, women are not choosing to breastfeeding, because they’re not, I don’t know why they don’t, but anyway, maybe they don’t want to be attached to the baby all night or I don’t know. Or I don’t know, does it make your boobs saggier than if you didn’t breastfeed? Probably not but yeah, I think it’s normal now to choose not to breastfeed maybe they’re not around as much to make that happen because they’re working, that kind of thing.

Sure so yeah the current guidelines are, well the research rather is based on full term babies and the safety is based on purely breastfeeding for six months and not combination feeding and our twins were born at 31 weeks, so very early and there’s two of them. So, the fact that the safety data isn’t there for premature babies yet and the fact there’s two of them I just felt that solely breastfeeding would be very difficult, I know some people manage but I think, you know, the number that manage to exclusively breastfeed multiple babies is much lower than a singleton and the safety data isn’t there for premature babies. So I spoke to my consultant and chatted it through with her and we decided that, well I decided ultimately that, you know, safety first sort of thing so decided not to. But luckily where I am the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) because they were in intensive care for eight weeks, well the special care baby unit for eight weeks, they have access to a breastmilk bank so they had donor breastmilk for the first sort of three weeks which was great and then went onto the premature baby formula.

You didn’t breastfeed?

After all that, no [laughs]. After all that. So basically I really don’t know. I had a very long tiring labour so, by the time it was done, I was so exhausted. So, the nurse I had epidural so I think my left arm couldn’t hold up. I couldn’t hold my arm, so the nurse who was looking after me that day. I think she asked something about giving him some milk, right? And so, me, I thought she knew, I thought she knew what was going on. I thought she was in, like up to date with my condition and my everything, so I thought she knew, and my partner didn’t know at that time. So, we were in a room, and I just didn’t want to be like “Oh no, no he can’t have this milk,” or something like that. So, I don’t know, in my mind, when she gave him the milk, I thought maybe it was okay as a one off. Because I was weak at that moment, so I thought it was okay, let’s just do for one hour. And the next thing they’re coming and telling me like “Oh no, because we’ve already given him this milk you can’t breastfeed anymore.” And they were quick enough to give me the pill to dry up my milk, very, very quick.

He had jaundice and the lack of awareness and the nurses who they obviously are not HIV trained background, they did not know how to support me. I did call there was a group there was a lady that gave me the number as well, they also deal with people with HIV and give support in terms of surrounding breastfeeding. I remember that evening I called them, but maybe they were out of office, if they could support me at that time I really, I didn’t want to do it

The first day I breastfed, it was good like I said I was really happy doing it and I was just caught unaware. The decision was just instant, “he needs this amount of fluid” you know, and my milk is not producing it like give me a chance, it didn’t make no difference though, for you to know that it wasn’t necessary because despite the formula milk it still didn’t get rid of the jaundice so I had to stay there again, so the problem was nothing to do with breast milk or anything like that because it still didn’t go, until they did further treatment and by that time the breast milk was gushing out, so the support was really poor.

I’m happy that he’s healthy you know, but what can you do, it didn’t happen the jaundice messed up everything that they would have at least supported me, you know, because just the following morning the breasts were full of milk, because the reason why he was put on the other milk is because they said I wasn’t bringing milk enough but again, that doesn’t even make sense because I think the first day or so the milk sometimes doesn’t come out, so long as you have the liquid gold, so the following day it was obviously a lot, but it was too late because they said that I couldn’t do combination, so once he was started on that one, that’s it, you can’t do both, so I had to just concentrate on the other one.

Because I have three children before this and I never bother about breastfeeding and they, they all come out well. They’re not sick, they don’t have any pain at all. I don’t take them to hospital, they don’t even have colds, they hardly have cold. They’re very strong, So, anybody out there that is thinking that because of their status they won’t, they won’t breastfeed this child and they get sick and worried about, no, no, no you don’t need that, you don’t just need that. All you need to do is focus on your baby, how to look after your baby best breast milk is good, very good but when you don’t have it, you don’t have it.

It’s good, I can say it’s good but when I said ‘it’s not gonna affect your child’ and all those things, and yet things can happen, mistakes can happen. Anyway, you know, that mistakes can happen, don’t just go it if there is another way to go around it, you understand? Breastfeeding is not, is not doing everything. The baby, there are children that, the mother that gave birth to them died. There’s things- that’s ways to go round this, what that the government said yes, if you want to do it, do it, it all depends on you. But for me, I don’t want any things, any single thing that would come from me to my child, no. No that does not mean, if I don’t feed my child that does not mean that I don’t love him. I love him so much, you can’t love my child more than I do. Any sensible woman, any sensible mum that has senses that is intact. Nobody on earth that will love her child more than the lady that gave birth – the mother, you know what I mean so they can’t lie about it, if I breastfeed this child, its fine if you can’t do it.

I understand like in Africa ladies with HIV they are encouraged to breastfeed if they want to but here, you know, you are not encouraged unless if you do feel you want to breastfeed then you’ll be supported but then you’ll be told the risk, yeah so because this time round I wanted to try to breastfeed but then I understand is like if I breastfeed then there is a risk and then there’ll be so many tests, I know, it will be like, I think last time I had the baby had three blood tests but I think if I had breastfeed I will have to do more testing.

And there’s that fear of like a little child, needles all the time.

One of the things I enjoyed the first-time round was that we could it put less pressure on just one partner to feed the child and for me as the male of a child I thought it was important for me to find at least some way to try and bond with the child when they were younger, so giving the opportunity to bottle feed early doors was quite, was quite helpful. Obviously when it came round to the second one knowing that as my thought process the first time probably took me a little while to be fully convinced I was very much lead by my partner actually saying that it was something that, that she really wanted to try and it didn’t take a huge amount of convincing for me but, you know, it’s one of those things, normally the decision is hers, you know, we make most decisions combined, that sort of decision is hers and if she wants to, she wants to go down that route then I can only fully support it.

And I think, I think what it was, again the impressions that I’ve got from my partner is that we, that she really wants the, again also the nutritional side of it but for her I think it’s the bonding side of it that’s really important this time and I don’t feel that that was lacking the first time round possibly but maybe it will help even more so this time.