Infants and HIV

            Imagine taking your child to see the pediatrician for a routine follow-up. You have noticed some abnormalities and even some developmental delays with your child but decided to overlook them. You say to yourself everything is fine, they"re just progressing slower then other children, no big deal. The doctor does a complete physical and noticed a few abnormal findings as well. He explains to you his findings and decides to do a complete blood work-up just to make sure that everything is going well. You"re instructed to call the office back in a couple of days for the results. Several days go by and the doctor gives you a call. In a calm voice, he tells you that he need to see you in the office as soon as possible. You nervously tell the doctor that you will be there as soon as possible. You get to the doctor's office and wait for what seem like hours. The doctor finally come and gets you and takes you to the conference room. On the table are pamphlets but you can't see what they say. The doctor explains to you that when he did his initial follow-up exam there were some abnormalities, which warranted further check-up and therefore he ordered some blood work. The results were in - your child has HIV. You, the mother, who is HIV positive, transmitted it to your child during birth. You tell yourself over and over again this can't be happening, but it can.
             While the idea of children having HIV is a sad thought, it's a reality. Today, the majority of all new HIV infections occur among children and young people less than 25 years of age. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), children and young adults (ie, persons under 25 years of age) accounted for over one-third of the 33 million people living with HIV in 1998. The majority of all new HIV infections in that year came from this population. Four million children under the age of 15 contracted HIV since the epidemic began; most of whom (about 90 percent) became infected from their mothers during pregnancy, labor, birth, or breast-feeding.