CHARACTERISTICS AND EVOLUTION OF FAMILY-STRUCTURE OF CHILDREN BORN TOHIV-INFECTED MOTHERS

HIV infection raises unique social problems in childhood, due to the d isease of the biologic mother and often also in the father, and to fre quent association of infection with drug abuse and social and economic al disadvantages. Parents' death due to AIDS has been estimated to hea vily increase the orphan burden both in developed and in developing co untries. This research investigated changes in the continuing presence s of the mother and the father in the family unit for children born to HIV infected mothers and evaluated differences between HIV infected a nd HIV non-infected children. Twenty-one Italian Centers caring for ch ildren born to HIV infected mothers retrieved information from existin g medical records and collected data for 978 children. At the last obs ervation 22.4% of the children had lost the mother, 39.9% had father; only 56% lived both parents. The probability for a child born to a HIV infected mother to have both parents alive and living with him/her de creases with time, being only 46% at the age of five, without any stat istically significant difference between HIV infected and seroreverted children. Intravenous drug abuse at the time of child's birth in HIV infected parents negatively affected the chances of both parents to co ntinue to be present with the child. No statistically significant diff erences were demonstrated between never or previous drug abusers. The data suggest that all children born to HIV infected mothers need speci fic types of social support, irrespective of their infectious status, and that parents' absence rapidly becomes a major problem in the first years of life.