Voices of women
Maklehemena, M.
Integration 1998(57): 8-9
1998
ISSN/ISBN: 0916-0582 PMID: 12294631 Document Number: 279874
In this address to the 12th World AIDS Conference, a young HIV- infected mother from South Africa recounted how her baby died after receiving AZT therapy because she was not told the baby could be infected through breast feeding. This experience clarified the absolute necessity of women being given all available information before and during clinical trials and of health workers gathering appropriate information about women patients in order to help them make informed choices. Women have many questions about clinical trials that have not been addressed, including what efforts are made to prolong the lives of mothers in trials that seek to save the lives of infants and what factors influence a mother's decision to breast feed. Recommendations of actions to incorporate the voices of women themselves into clinical interventions and into health worker-client relationships include the following: 1) provide funding for counselor training in perinatal trials; 2) consult social scientists about the social context of the subjects of clinical trials; 3) conduct local studies on breast feeding practices and preferences; 4) investigate women's decision-making process and their experiences in clinical trials; 5) collaborate with community advocacy groups in the design and conduct of trials and the implementation of results into clinical practice; 6) support women in their selection of breast or bottle feeding; and 7) include the effect on mother's health and economic activities in cost-benefit analyses of interventions to prevent maternal-child transmission.