WOMENS HEALTH ISSUES Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) is when an HIV-positive mother passes the virus to her child during pregnancy, labour, delivery or breastfeeding. The programme is there to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV, preventing new infections among babies born from HIV infected women. Furthermore, this programme is all about improving the quality of life for HIV infected mothers through health education on prevention of re-infections, lifestyle modification and compliance and adherence to ARV medication. At the same time, it is intended at mitigating the impact of HIV and AIDS. All pregnant women are encouraged to test for HIV on their first ANC visit. If they test negative, follow up tests should be done every four weeks throughout the pregnancy period to exclude window period. If they test positive, they are put on ARVs, either as prophylaxis (short term prevention) or lifelong treatment depending on their CD4 count. All pregnant women are encouraged to book for Ante-natal care services at the clinic as early as possible and that is the entry point to the programme. Mother will know her HIV status as early as possible and depending on the results, she will be able to protect herself from being infected (if not infected), the baby is safe. If the mother is already infected, she will start treatment as early as possible, increasing the chances of the baby being born negative. The services can be accessed at any public health care facilities offering Primary Health Care services. Generally couples are encouraged to know their HIV status that prevents the chances of new infections (if both are not infected or one partner is infected) and re- infections for those who are already infected.
Posted on: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 11:13:51 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015