United Nations Radio

What started as an idea during a summer workshop at one of the world's most prestigious universities could help save thousands of babies worldwide. The Just Milk nipple shield is designed to stop mother to child transmission of the HIV virus during breastfeeding. The device was developed by Dr. David Sokal and a team of five young engineers during the International Development Design Summit held last year at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. UN Radio's Jocelyne Sambira caught up with Family Health International Scientist and leader of the Just Milk Project, Dr. Sokal to learn more about it.

SOKAL: A nipple shield is a very thin silicone device that women use when they have various problems with breast feeding. And we had an idea of putting a little insert in the tip of the nipple shield made of a non-woven fabric, sort of like a felt, that would have something in it that would kill HIV. And that little insert would be replaced once or twice a day, depending on the exact compound. The silicone is transparent, so it looks almost like a pacifier with a white insert at the tip of it. It is not ready for human testing yet to see if it really works. It will require quite a bit of laboratory work and then some animal testing before we could give it to mothers to try out with their babies.

JOCELYNE: Apparently more and more women are being told it is okay to breastfeed their children up to six months, if they are HIV-positive. Is this true, and if it is true, then will the nipple shield device really become a hit in developing countries? Or will women just prefer to breastfeed?

SOKAL: In the United States, HIV-positive women are advised not to breastfeed and to formula feed instead because the risk of HIV transmission is high with breastfeeding. In Africa, they've tried that (SEGUE) but in areas where women don't have the resources to use formula properly or they can't afford to buy enough, they found that more babies died from diarrhoea and malnutrition than were infected by HIV. So right, now the best thing mothers can do is breastfeed for six months and then switch to solid feeding sort of as generally recommended. But that does not prevent HIV transmission.

JOCELYNE: Are there any other challenges that you're looking at in terms of developing this product?

SOKAL: There are a number of technical challenges that we have to overcome. But one other possibility for the Just Milk shield is that it might be possible to use it to deliver other medications to babies. Some medications are unstable in liquid form and they are given to babies as syrups, but that tends to be expensive and inconvenient. So that has two advantages: it might improve availability of drugs for babies, new way to give medicines to babies. And if that worked out, then that would decrease the stigma that HIV-positive mothers might have using this, because mothers might be using something like this for various reasons.

duration: 2'35"