Breastfeeding is an identified route of transmission of HIV and national guidelines advise exclusive formula feeding for infants, yet formula milk is the only vertical transmission prevention tool not routinely commissioned by the NHS. This has resulted in a postcode lottery for mothers living with HIV who need to access formula – particularly those who struggle to afford it.
Our research for this briefing has revealed that financial support in the form of asylum support payments and Healthy Start vouchers, is inadequate or unavailable to mothers who are struggling to afford formula milk, and this has led to instances of mothers risking their own health by foregoing food for themselves.
Formula milk, and the appropriate equipment to use it, should be nationally available to mothers living with HIV as a key prevention right. Mothers living with HIV must be supported to make well-informed decisions and genuine choices in how they will feed their infant, and free provision of formula milk ensures that financial cost is not a factor in those decisions.
This briefing makes a series of recommendations to ensure that all women in the UK who need access to formula milk have provision of this essential prevention tool.