Guidelines on HIV and infant feeding 2010: principles and recommendations for infant feeding in the context of HIV and a summary of evidence

National or subnational health authorities should decide whether health services will principally counsel and support mothers known to be HIV infected to either breastfeed and receive ARV interventions or avoid all breastfeeding. In settings where national authorities have decided that maternal and child health services will principally promote and support breastfeeding and antiretroviral interventions as the strategy that will most likely give infants born to mothers known to be HIV infected the greatest chance of HIV-free survival, mothers known to be infected with HIV should exclusively breastfeed their infants for the first 6 months of life, introducing appropriate complementary foods thereafter, and continue breastfeeding for the first 12 months of life. Breastfeeding should then stop only once a nutritionally adequate and safe diet without breast-milk can be provided