Care and treatment for babies born to mothers with HIV / AIDS

According to Dr. Nguyen Viet Tien, Director of the Central Obstetrics Hospital, the most effective and economical way to reduce HIV / AIDS infected people is to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV / AIDS. However, even if the program to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV has been maximized, the number of children infected with HIV from their mothers cannot be ruled out.

(Photo: cwac.org) The monitoring, care and treatment for HIV-infected children remains a special concern. The detection of HIV-infected mothers can guide their children to monitor and care for them, done in obstetric specialties during pregnancy care and safe delivery. Monitoring the health status, strengthening as well as continuing treatment for HIV-infected children from mothers is the task of pediatric specialists.

Currently, care and treatment for babies born to mothers infected with HIV / AIDS are concerned about giving babies milk to completely replace breast milk. Although breastmilk is the most valuable source of nutrition for children, if it is given to HIV-infected infants, the likelihood of getting HIV through breast milk is still very high. In order to ensure that these children are fed with replacement milk, in addition to seeking financial support, counseling for children's nutrition is essential to help mothers with HIV nourish their children properly. ways, contributing to reducing the rate of mother-to-child HIV transmission after birth.

To ensure that these children are fed with completely replaceable milk safely and properly, health care facilities need to provide milk to their children periodically, while advising mothers or caregivers. nurturing and caring for children on how to safely use, prepare milk, monitor their growth, give them full immunization . This requires a process to keep track of HIV-infected mothers and their children after leaving the maternity home.

The second is the treatment of antiretroviral drugs for these children. Under the guidance of the Ministry of Health, confirmatory testing for babies born to HIV-infected mothers must be done by a national standard laboratory such as the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology or Ho Chi Minh City Pasteur Institute. The number of children infected with HIV from their mothers is not much, but half of them will die within the first two years without ARV treatment. This leads to the need for ARV treatment for some children when their HIV status is not confirmed in many places and requires coordination between HIV laboratories and pediatrics. Meanwhile, there are still a number of localities that do not yet have pediatric hospitals or pediatric specialists, so it is difficult and even inadequate to directly monitor and treat HIV-infected children in the locality.

Recently, some provinces and cities have established facilities to nurture and care for abandoned HIV infected children. Here, the children are cared for, nurtured and treated according to the Ministry of Health's regimen, many of them are better off. Hanoi Labor Education Center No. 2 nurtures 23 children from 3 months to 6 years old with parents or one of two people who died of AIDS. The children who were brought here in the state of weakened bodies have children who are HIV-infected, some of them have turned to AIDS. Here the children are cared for by doctors and girls, treated with ARV drugs so their health has improved . Or at Tam Binh Center in Thu Duc District, Ho Chi Minh City, up to now nurturing and caring for 104 abandoned HIV infected children at hospitals and on the streets. With 50 employees, including 3 doctors, 2 doctors - most of whom have worked at orphanages so they are very sympathetic to HIV-infected children . So if the places are other countries throughout the country also have nurturing and treating facilities for children under the guidance of the Ministry of Health, which will ease their misfortune, make them live equally as everyone else .