Nearly 5 percent of babies born to mothers with chronic
hepatitis C virus (HCV) become infected. How and when this infection
happens is not known. But a group of researchers recently ruled out
breastfeeding as the means of infection, encouraging HCV-infected
mothers to breastfeed their infants.
The study included 73 HCV-infected mothers who tested negative for
human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Researchers took breastmilk
samples and serum samples from the mothers within about one week of each other. The
researchers then took serum samples from the 76 newborns to test them for HVC.
Serum samples were taken from the infants during the first week of life
and again between
one the three months old. All of the infants in the study were
breastfed.
The breastmilk and serum was tested for HCV RNA, and none of the
breastmilk samples were confirmed positive of HCV RNA. All maternal
serum tested for antibodies to HCV were positive. One child tested
positive for HCV RNA at 27 days old, while the remaining 75 infants
remained negative.
The researchers found that it took three to 28 months for the infants
to lose maternal antibodies to HCV. They concluded that HCV is not
transmitted through breastmilk and that breastfeeding by an HCV-infected
mothers does not harm the baby.
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