Rachel
Rachel had planned to breastfeed her baby, but because of various clinical reasons she was not able to and feels disappointed about this.
Rachel is of Black African descent works as a care worker. She has a 5-month-old baby.
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Rachel migrated to the UK from West Africa. She had been regularly testing for HIV in her home country and continued doing so in the UK. When she tested positive for HIV in 2015, Rachel was worried it would affect her immigration status and did not want to attend the HIV clinic. She also felt concerned when a healthcare professional took her personal details. However, a nurse told her it would not affect her immigration status or job prospects. She was also told about Undetectable = Untransmittable, and that she could have babies born without HIV.
Her medical team told her about the latest infant feeding guidelines and made a plan to support her to breastfeed. Rachel felt breastmilk was important for nutrition, health and growth. However, Rachel’s baby was born premature and had to stay in hospital for three months, which impacted her ability to breastfeed. Rachel did not have enough milk supply to exclusively breastfeed. During that time, her baby was given donor breastmilk. Although Rachel expressed for three months, the breastmilk was not given to her baby as the hospital staff felt it was not enough of a supply to avoid mixed feeding. Rachel was disappointed that her baby needed donor breastmilk and “felt guilty” that she could not give her baby breastmilk because of her HIV.
While she was on the maternity ward, Rachel was shown how to mix formula milk and bottle feed. She received free formula milk from the maternity ward and HIV clinic, but not sterilising equipment.
People have asked Rachel why she did not breastfeed. She feels that not breastfeeding is associated with promiscuity and so she worries about the stigma.
Rachel worried that her HIV diagnosis would affect her immigration status in the UK.
Rachel worried that her HIV diagnosis would affect her immigration status in the UK.
The support was really good because, at that time, I was like I thought you know like sometimes I was thinking, “Oh, is this going to affect my immigration status?” Because silly me, that’s what I was thinking about because I didn’t know like oh it’s something [inaudible] a disease and things like that. So, I was thinking “oh, is it going to affect my immigration status?” So, at the point where I didn’t want to turn up to the clinic. I didn’t want to go there. I just wanted to stay, I just wanted to go about my business and then I think about it. I went there but I was really nervous when the doctor went, when they were taking my details. She had to put me on the system. They set everything up for treatment and everything and then I was like, and he said to me, “Listen, none of this information is going out. We just need to make sure we keep everything private, and nothing is going to be shared except if you want something to be shared. But even if you know us, we see you in public or whatever unless you say help to us, we’ll pretend that we don’t know you, that kind of thing”.
Rachel’s baby had donor breast milk in the hospital but didn’t tolerate it well so was put on formula. She felt it was her fault that she couldn’t breastfeed.
Rachel’s baby had donor breast milk in the hospital but didn’t tolerate it well so was put on formula. She felt it was her fault that she couldn’t breastfeed.
Then she was having donor breast milk in the hospital, so I had to give consent for that because it’s something they ask me for because she need nutrients and to put on weight, so they were weighing every option. At that stage, when she was so they asked me, I gave my consent for it. I know how I felt that day the very moment I gave my consent for that. I felt that I would I felt that I disappointed, I’m disappointed in myself like I did I caused this for her. She’s not meant to go through all of that. And this, I know it’s something that you can’t, you can’t avoid, some of these things around you can’t avoid it, even if you can’t avoid it but they are just ways you can get them without me knowing that this is the situation.
So, I felt really disappointed in myself that I put her through this, and I let her go through this because when you see other mummies there expressing and taking it for their babies, put their stickers name on them, put them in the freezer and for me I can’t do it. They had to use a donor one for her, which really breaks me down like. It really breaks me down because that let say there was no virus or anything. Even if it’s three months, I’ll be able to give it to her for three months actually I know my mind is at peace she has something from me for that three months, but that never happened. So, me giving my consent for the donor one was really now heart breaking for me but, at the end of the day, I did it, but she was not reacting to it properly, what they wanted her, so they took her off that one and then started giving her some other form of nutrient.
Rachel discussed how she received specialist care as a woman living with HIV.
Rachel discussed how she received specialist care as a woman living with HIV.
Really no one has ever treated me differently. I can’t lie about that. No one, no healthcare worker around here has ever treated me differently. No one really. The only thing that when you have that, when you are pregnant with that type of condition, you have your doctor to look after you, you have a special doctor for that and a specialists for women that are living with it that are pregnant.
Rachel felt it was her fault that she couldn’t breastfeed her baby, and was also aware how mothers in this position maybe judged by those around them.
Rachel felt it was her fault that she couldn’t breastfeed her baby, and was also aware how mothers in this position maybe judged by those around them.
Because it’s really bad for us having babies and they’re not having breast milk but for me, I look at it that this is all my fault and has nothing to do with my baby. It’s something that I’m guilty of. It’s something that I’ve put my baby through and for me, it’s not something that I have on purpose that I did it on purpose, sometimes you can just have a one night stand. Sometimes you can just you could, there are things can really happen. It’s not just through sex it can happen. You can have it in different ways. So it’s something that you can’t, it’s just like flu when you don’t know where you caught it from and that kind of thing.
So it’s really, really sad for them, for the babies as well and for mums as well when people want to stigmatise with that, “You want to have sex, you want to be sleeping around, that’s why you don’t want to breast feed your child.”