HIV And Pregnancy
Contents:
Symptoms of HIV in Pregnancy
Manifestations of the HIV infecting is often analogous to a common cold or influenza, therefore the person reveals that he has such a serious disease not at once. Often from three to six weeks pass after infecting when some symptoms of the HIV infection appear. They are the temperature rise, chills, pains in joints, increased sweating, more often in night time, sickliness. Ulcers on the mucous tunic of the mouth and a rash on the skin can appear.
The blood test helps to reveal the virus in blood – a polymerase chain reaction determining the presence of the blood cell antibodies that the organism secretes in response to the virus infiltration. But about three months can pass since the moment of infecting until the appearance of antibodies. And only several years later, in the absence of treatment, AIDS the final stage of the person's immunodeficiency – develops.
Variants of Treatment
They are the following:
- postexposure prophylaxis, which is taken in progress of 2 days, but not later;
- the direct treatment of the HIV infection.
The pregnant women, who are registered in a maternity welfare clinic, are examined in the planned order for antibodies to the HIV. It is because from a timely revelation of this disease and a prescription of a special drug therapy, the quality of life of a pregnant woman herself will depend. And prophylaxis and treatment of immunodeficiency also reduce the risk of the fetus infecting.
In the absence of treatment of the HIV infection, the prognosis is not consoling. After the expiration of ten years, the HIV infection turns into another stage. This stage, under the name of AIDS, in most cases ends with lethal outcome. The immunity of a person is so much weakened that it can resist neither the viruses nor the bacteria, which surround a person everywhere. And as a result, one can die from pneumonia or blood-poisoning.
Pregnancy and HIV, Risks
If the pregnant woman infected by a human immunodeficiency virus did not receive medicine prophylaxis and treatment, the virus hits into a fetus with a flow of blood or he gets it while passage through the birth canal at the labor. After the child birth, the women living with HIV are forbidden to breastfeed, because the virus penetrates through the breast milk.
Can One Avoid Infecting of a Child?
The following measures are used for the purpose of the decrease of risk of a child infecting:
- infection HIV prevention by medicine;
- caesarean section;
- breastfeeding refusal;
- a child's postpartum prophylaxis.
In case of timely detection of a virus and observance of all stages of prophylaxis, even the labor through the natural birth canal can be offered to the woman.
Video: HIV and pregnancy.