Simoes Barbosa RH; International Conference on AIDS.

Int Conf AIDS. 2002 Jul 7-12; 14: abstract no. ThPeE7827.

Public Health Unit/Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

BACKGROUND: historically, medical ideology has addressed women's body as a reproductive apparatus that should be controlled. As Aids epidemic is increasingly infecting women, medical control over women's body is being updated. HIV+ pregnancy is now object of medical intervention and "saving" the babies becomes the main goal of medical actions. In order to identify how health professionals are ideologically addressing this issue, a qualitative research was carried out in a public hospital that treats HIV pregnant women through the ACTG 076 protocol. The main objective was to identify the outcomes of medical ideology on HIV pregnant women's reproductive decisions and psychosocial needs. METHODS: a three months ethnographic observation over all health program activities was held. After that, in-depth interviews were carried out with patients (20) and the complete health staff (7). The themes approached were: gender and motherhood social representations, acquaintances between HIV and reproductive decisions, evaluation of health care and its role in supporting psychosocial HIV pregnant women needs. RESULTS: receiving an HIV diagnosis during pregnancy is a very painful situation, intensified by the severe poverty of the interviewed women, what demands additional psychosocial support to ensure the treatment effectiveness. Medical ideology is evinced by the main effort of saving the babies from HIV infection, what explicit medical authority on women's reproductive roles; however, as social and gender subjects, these professionals experience conflicts that may facilitate transformations; finally, they assume that this tough professional experience induce them to reflect on and change their moral and ethical values. CONCLUSIONS: although medical ideology related to reproductive field remains active at all levels of health care, there is a potential for transformation that points to integrality on heath care in the perspective of sexual and reproductive rights.

Publication Types:

• Meeting Abstracts

Keywords:

• Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
• Child
• Delivery of Health Care
• Disease Transmission, Vertical
• Evaluation Studies
• Female
• HIV Infections
• HIV Seropositivity
• Health
• Health Services Needs and Demand
• Humans
• Infant
• Mothers
• Poverty
• Pregnancy
• transmission

Other ID:

• GWAIDS0017801

UI: 102255299

From Meeting Abstracts