Journal of Health and Environmental Research 2020; 6(2): 31-36 http://www.sciencepublishinggroup.com/j/jher doi: 10.11648/j.jher.20200602.11 ISSN: 2472-3584 (Print); ISSN: 2472-3592 (Online) HIV Exposed Infants Feeding Practices and Associated Factors Among Mothers Attending PMTCT Clinics at Ambo Town Public Health Facilities Kefyalew Taye Belete Department of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Science, Ambo University, Ambo, Ethiopia Email address: To cite this article: Kefyalew Taye Belete. HIV Exposed Infants Feeding Practices and Associated Factors Among Mothers Attending PMTCT Clinics at Ambo Town Public Health Facilities. Journal of Health and Environmental Research. Vol. 6, No. 2, 2020, pp. 31-36. doi: 10.11648/j.jher.20200602.11 Received: September 9, 2019; Accepted: November 6, 2019; Published: April 29, 2020 Abstracts: About thirty seven million people worldwide were living with human immunodeficiency virus in the year 2017, of these, 1.8 million were children (<15 years old). Most of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa and were infected by their human immunodeficiency virus from positive mothers during pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding. The study aimed to assess human immune deficiency virus exposed infants feeding practices and associated factors among mothers on prevention of mother to child transmission clinics at Ambo town public health institution. Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted from May to August 2019, at Ambo town public health institution. Systematic random sampling method was utilized to select study respondents. Data were collected through an exit interview by using pre-tested structured questionnaire. The returned questionnaires were checked for completeness, cleaned manually and entered to epidata version 3.1 and then exported SPSS version 20.0 for further analysis. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were carried out and finally descriptive finding was presented using frequency distribution tables and graphs. From total of 106 respondents 44 (42%) were greater than or equal to 30 years old and majority (75.5%) were from urban and more than half (56.8%) had good knowledge towards infant feeding practice. About 53.8% of the children were exclusively breast fed, whereas 28.3%) and 17.9%had practiced mixed feeding and exclusive replacement feeding respectively. This study result identified that the main reason reported for Exclusive Breast Feeding were advised by health professionals, easily availability of breast milk and nutritional importance among the study population. Thus Health professionals working at prevention of mother to child transmission clinic should work on infant feeding practice options by using mass media, community mobilization and health education in more comprehensive. Keywords: Ambo Ethiopia, HIV-positive Mothers, Infant Feeding Practice 1. Introduction Worldwide about 36.9 million people were living with HIV/AIDS by the year 2017. Out of this about 1.8 million people were children aged less than fifteen years and leaving in sub-Saharan Africa. Most of the children were infected with the virus during pregnancy, delivery and breast feeding [1, 2, 3]. Similarly Ethiopia, one of the poorest country in the Horn of Africa, carries the highest burden of HIV/AIDS with prevalence of 1.1% among Adults aged 15-45 years and 3.4% among children aged less than five years, where child to mother transmission was the main route of acquisition of the virus [4, 5]. Literatures show that HIV transmission pace is approximated to be 5-10% during antenatal, 10-15% during labor and child birth, and 5-20% after birth during breast feeding. Meanwhile the risk of HIV transmission increases as duration of breast feeding increases [2, 6]. However breast milk provides sufficient nutrient requirements of the infant. Thus prioritization of risk benefit analysis is very crucial to prevent HIV transmission while breast feeding [7]. To prevent Non-HIV related morbidity and mortality of infants WHO recommends exclusively breast feeding for the first six months and continue to breastfeed for at least 12 months while introducing complementary foods. World Health Organization recommends Exclusive breast feeding, in areas where exclusive replacement feeding was not