Stephen

Initially, Stephen was keener about breastfeeding than his partner Holly, but will support whatever decision she makes once the baby is born. They are leaning towards breastfeeding, mainly because of the health benefits to the baby.

Stephen and his partner Holly began their relationship a number of years ago. At the time of interview, Holly was pregnant with their first child. Stephen said Holly’s HIV status did not bothe him and he thought okay, so wha. He learned about HIV medication, how it works and what undetectable; (viral load) means.

Stephen was initially more in favour of breastfeeding than Holly. Stephen believed the low risk of HIV transmission is outweighed by the health benefits of breastfeeding such as the boost the immune system, lowers the risk of adult diabetes and obesity and a whole list of thing. Stephen believed that the National Childbirth Trust training and more interactions with midwives pushing breastfeedin has also slightl changed her mind about it.

Stephen’s partner, Holly, wasn’t sure about breastfeeding, but decided to try after receiving information about the benefits from midwives in their NCT class.

Age at interview 37

I’m more pro breastfeeding whereas Holy is not so pro, so yeah it’s a bit of a, the reasons behind it yeah I think Holly’s just more scared about the risk of breastfeeding and kind of yeah that sort of element and Holly’s mum didn’t breastfeed her so she’s like “well I turned into a strong adult”. And we’ve been doing, you know, like NCT (National charity for pregnancy, birth and early parenthood). So, we’ve been doing NCT and they have midwives who are pushing breastfeeding and kind of like giving you the benefits and kind of yeah this is what you should be doing. So now I think her mind’s slightly changed about it.

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Stephen found information about HIV and infant feeding from trusted sources like the NHS website.

Age at interview 37

I mean, I like the NHS is where I would start and then you kind of go from there. I don’t really wanna go real deep into kind of like scientific literature because it would probably go over my head. But, you know, kind of do what I can from trusted sources so to speak.

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Stephen, Holly’s partner, was interested in the benefits of breastfeeding for babies’ immune systems.

Age at interview 37

There’s a lot of, so yeah you’ve got the colostrum in the first like three or four days of breastfeeding which is kind of like sure to sort of like boost the immune system, lowers the risk of adult diabetes and obesity and a whole list of things.

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Stephen learned more about HIV after his partner, Holly shared her HIV status, but was not bothered about her diagnosis.

Age at interview 37

Yeah, kind of I, when I first found out I was like ‘okay so what’, and I kind of learnt about it quite quickly like being sort of undetectable and what that actually means and how the medication works and all that sort of kind of scientific side. And for me it works as far as I’m aware of the research that’s gone into this kind of the drugs which people take with HIV have and how it all works and kind of all the trials that people are going through. It seems to be kind of yeah, it’s, it kind of doesn’t really bother me to be fair.

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