Actress Wilbroda: HIV+ house help breastfed my baby to calm him
Actress Jacky Nyaminde, popularly known as Wilbroda, has given a heart wrenching narration of how her HIV positive nanny used to breastfeed her baby to soothe him.
In an interview with Citizen TV over the weekend, Wilbroda revealed how she was one day called by a neighbour (who refused to disclose her name) to tell of the house help’s secret breastfeeding sessions with the toddler.
The neighbour had been tipped by another house help.
Wilbroda was told how the house help would breastfeed her son so as to calm him down when he was crying.
The actress however did not reveal how she came to establish that the house help was HIV+. However, blood tests on her son indicated that he had not been infected by the deadly virus.
Wilbroda fired the house help soon after.
‘INTENTIONALLY’
“I don’t think she did that intentionally because really if it was to infect my son then there were easier ways of doing it because she was not even a lactating mother herself,” said Wilbroda in the interview.
On whether employers should get their house helps tested for HIV, Wilbroda said it is important for everyone to get tested, but the tests can not be forced on house helps.
“I would encourage my house help and I would tell her let’s go together you know. We are both adults so lets go together. I would take all the adults in the house and encourage them let’s all go together,” she added.
Wilbroda’s case is not an isolated one. Women around the country have in the past encountered similar incidents with their house helps.
A mother commented on Kilimani Mums Facebook group; “I know of a person whose baby is on post exposure prophylaxis because he was breastfeed by a house help…not everyone is that good as you people think.”
Another added; “It’s the sad reality, they keep breastfeeding children maybe we should add that in our orientation talks coz some are clueless how harmful that can be.”