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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Nesha Z. Haniff, PhD, MPH, Women's Studies, University of Michigan, 505 South state Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, 734-763-4520, nzh@umich.edu

In interviews with 22 HIV positive women in Jamaica, it was observed that many of these women became HIV infected at an early age. Mostly because of poverty, the young women became involved with older men who could support them financially.This form of transactional sex often resulted in preganancy at an early age. Often the fathers exit the picture. Already these young women have learned that unprotected sex is a commodity and after pregnancy this is the only commodity they have as they are plunged deeper into poverty. HIV infection happens when she no longer has to think of only herself but her child who is hungry. This drives her into risking her life for the child's life. This paper will discuss the problematic of young women and the trade for the child's life as a metaphor for the chronic problem of MCH who only comes into their lives when they are mothers and who have been constrained in finding ways to separate the woman's needs from the child's needs.The advent of HIV infections for young women is begging that this problem be addressed.I suggest three strategies that should be mainstreamed in areas ravaged by HIV.

Learning Objectives:

• How adolescent mothers become HIV infected only after they are mothers
• How MCH has historically prioritized women only as mothers
• What MCH must do to change this paradigm

Keywords: Maternal and Child Health, HIV Risk Behavior

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered