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Mother to Child Transmission of Hiv

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Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV Reflective Essay:

April 22, 2013

Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV Reflective Essay
Human Immunodeficiency Virus is a slowly replicating retrovirus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The number of people infected with HIV/AIDS is rising in America, so with that being said what happens to the children who are born at the hands of an HIV infected mother?
HIV breaks down our body’s immune system causing people to become ill with opportunistic infections that normally wouldn’t cause them to get ill. HIV is cannot be diagnosed based of only symptoms because the symptoms are muscle aches, swollen glands in the throat, fatigue, headaches and other flu-like symptoms. This is why it is very important to get tested at least yearly because the sooner the treatments can be started than the better the chances of getting the disease maintained before it moves to AIDS or causes other unwanted problems such as altered mental changes.
HIV is spread through exposure to exposure to HIV-infected blood or body fluids. The primary transmission modes are contact with an infected persons body fluids during unprotected sex, blood-to-blood exposure (either by direct contact or through needle sharing among injection drug users), and perinatal transmission from infected mother to child(Cibulka, 2006).The transmission of HIV from an HIV-positive mother to her child during pregnancy, labor, delivery or breastfeeding is called mother-to-child transmission. The chances of a HIV positive mother transmitting the disease to her child ranges from 15-45% the mother doesn’t receive any treatment for the disease during pregnancy and even after. The chances decrease below 5% with effective interventions, such as bottle feeding, having a cesarean section and taking their retroviral medications.
Mother-to-child transmission is very serious

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