Adherence to Exclusive Breastfeeding and its Associated Factors among HIV-Positive Mothers in Referral Hospitals of Amhara Regional State, Northwest Ethiopia, 2018

Background: Exclusive breastfeeding is defined as feeding only breast milk without any other liquids or solids, except for medicine. For mothers with positive human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), adherence to exclusive breastfeeding added with antiretroviral therapy extremely reduces the risk of transmitting the virus to their exposed neonates. Therefore, the World Health Organization has recommended exclusive breastfeeding for exposed infants within the first 6 months of life. This study was performed to identify factors associated with adherence to exclusive breastfeeding among HIV-positive mothers. Methods: The required data in this facility based cross-sectional study was collected using a structured questionnaire through a face-to-face interview. Descriptive statistics were used to show the frequency distributions of factors associated with the dependent variable. Logistic regression was applied to identify factors associated with the outcome variable. The odds ratio was used for the measure of association, and statistical tests with p-values of less than 0.05 were considered significant. Results: The proportion of adherence to exclusive breastfeeding among HIV-positive mothers was found to be 80.8% (95% CI: 77.2-84.6). It was revealed that having good knowledge (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=7.363, CI=3.37-12.98), receiving exclusive breastfeeding counseling during the postnatal period (AOR=4.88, CI=2.68-8.916), timely initiation of exclusive breastfeeding (AOR=4.429, CI=2.378-8.25), and making 4 or more antenatal care visits (AOR=2.557, CI=1.413-4.629) were identified to be the significant factors. Conclusion: The proportion of adherence to exclusive breastfeeding among HIV-positive mothers was found to be low. Interventions that seek to increase exclusive breastfeeding should focus on ensuring four antepartum care visits and postpartum counseling.