Mothers with HIV will receive free formula milk adapted to prevent the risk of infection to their babies

2023-08-01 12:26:08

From this same Tuesday -August 1, 2023- mothers with HIV will be able to purchase formula milk free of charge in order to avoid the risk of transmitting this infection to their babies through breastfeeding.

Thus, it has been signed by the Ministry of Health and has already been published in the Official State Gazette (BOE). The agreement has been signed jointly with the National Association of Manufacturers of Children’s Diet Products (ANDI) and the Spanish Pediatric Foundation (FEP).

As specialists explain, HIV is transmitted sexually, by exposure to infected blood, and by transmission from a pregnant mother to her child during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum. Thus, the concept of perinatal transmission encompasses all the possibilities of transmission, including exposure to breast milk during the postpartum period.

However, and as reported by the Ministry of Health, the probability of neonatal infection has decreased significantly thanks to screening during pregnancy, antiretroviral treatment (ART) of pregnant women and prophylaxis in newborns. In this context, breastfeeding should be taken into account as a time of risk of infection.

That is why the free dispensing of formula milk is a way to reduce or prevent the risk of contagion to newborns: “Feeding with adapted formula is the only effective strategy to prevent the transmission of HIV from mothers to sons and daughters during breastfeeding according to scientific recommendations”, as explained by Health.

The free dispensing of milk formula is indicated for children up to six months of age in the hospitals where they were born and where follow-up is carried out to rule out HIV infection; being, on the other hand, the amount of milk estimated in the agreement of 34 jars of 800 grams of formula per baby, for an approximate number of 70 infants, “maximum 100”; the market value of the donated infant formulas is around 70,000 euros.

For its part, each center will establish the dispensing circuit, which may be from the Hospital Pharmacy, the food store or by the pediatrician who monitors the patient in consultation. The first delivery will be made at birth and before being discharged from the maternity ward, in which the amount established for the first month of life will be supplied; the following will be done with a periodicity that will be the follow-up in consultation.

The program, which is valid for two years from the day of its registration in the State Registry of Bodies and Instruments of Cooperation (REOICO), only contemplates the dispensing of adapted formula. Thus, other special types such as hydrolyzates will be administered by the corresponding units (pediatrics, gastroenterology, etc.), by the already established mechanisms of special milks, approved and with the circuit that already exists for any infant not exposed to HIV.