Vitamin A in Breastmilk and HIV Infection in West Africa

An association between impaired maternal vitamin A status during pregnancy and increased risk of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV has been documented in observational studies.1 However vitamin A supplementation during pregnancy has not shown any efficacy in reducing the overall MTCT risk.2,3 WHO recommends vitamin A supplementation in all women within the first six weeks after delivery, complementary to the child supplementation4. Limited information is available on vitamin A in breastmilk of West-African women and its association with the risk of MTCT. We evaluated such a relationship in Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso. A secondary objective was to assess the association between milk and maternal serum retinol levels at day 45 post-partum.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedInternational Society for Research in Human Milk and Margarett K. Davis, Charles E. Isaacs, Lars Å. Hanson, Anne L. Wright (2002). Integrating population outcomes, biological mechanisms and research methods in the study of human milk and lactation. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Pub. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation (ISRHML). September 15-19, 2000. Tucson, Arizona, USA