Neonatal Nurse Practitioner Practice Exam 2025 – Comprehensive All-in-One Guide to Exam Success!

The primary route for postnatal transmission of HIV to neonates is breastfeeding. This transmission occurs through the breast milk of an HIV-positive mother. The World Health Organization emphasizes that while breastfeeding can offer numerous health benefits to the infant, mothers with HIV who are not on antiretroviral therapy or who have a high viral load carry the risk of transmitting the virus to their child during breastfeeding.

Other potential routes of transmission exist; however, vertical transmission during birth primarily pertains to transmission that occurs during labor and delivery, rather than postnatally. Blood exposure could happen through various means, but it is not a significant postnatal transmission route compared to breastfeeding. Premastication, which involves the mother chewing food before giving it to the infant, is an unusual and minimal risk route that has not been shown to be a major pathway for HIV transmission. Thus, breastfeeding stands out as the most critical and documented method of postnatal transmission of HIV to neonates.