HIV positive women should not become pregnant Research Paper

HIV positive women should not become pregnant - Research Paper Example There is also a risk of higher post operative complications among severely immunodepressed HIV infected women. Moreover, pregnant women with HIV are affected by stigmatization. A cross-sectional study done on 1525 women attending antennal clinics in Kenya indicated that the rates of stigma was high which led them to refuse testing (Turan, Bukusi, Onono, Holzemer, & Cohen, 2011) . This paper focuses on evidence based review of literature why HIV positive women should not become pregnant. There is an estimation of about 1.5 million women living with HIV globally with over 90% concentrated in the Sub-Saharan Africa. According to Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (2014), perinatal transmission is HIV transmission from mother to child during pregnancy, labor and delivery. In the United States, 88% of persons under 13 diagnosed with HIV acquired it perinatally. The African American population represented 63%, Hispanics were 22%, while whites were 13% of the dignoses of perinatal HIV infection at the end of 2009. Despite the increase in the number of women with HIV gving birth, there has been a decline in perinatal infections from 2007 to 2009. The transmission rates are high, 15- 45% when no interventions are put in place. In developed countries, the mother to child transmission (MTCT) of HIV has been almost eliminated due to effective prevention programs. There are significant challenges facing prevention mother to child transmission (PMTCT) programs in developing countries therefore causing significant gaps in reducing the rates of MTCT. HIV positive women are recommended by the World Health Organization to be assessed for the eligibility to start highly active anterotroviral therapy (HAART). In this regard, PMTCT programs present a major opportunity to HIV positive women to enable prevention of infant infections as well as allow