Law & Order along with the pregnancy game

So while I'm looking around Avert.org's webpage I stumble upon the games section.

There's this thing called the pregnancy game where you get asked questions about pregnancy and learn more about it as you score higher.

http://www.avert.org/pregnancy-game.htm

You start off with 5 lives on Level 1.

So what I learned is that sperm can live for several days in the body, but for only 24 hours outside of the body. Also, many women suffer from acne while they are pregnant.

I love the show Law & Order: SVU. There was an episode where a mother had 2 children who both turned out to be HIV positive. The whole time she was pregnant she didn't use any antiretrovirals because a doctor that she went to told her there was no evidence that HIV lead to AIDS so she had nothing to worry about. As a result she died because she felt no need to take medications to control her HIV. A question that was posed that I'm still wondering about is, is the doctor truly at fault when it is posted everyone that it is a widely-known belief that HIV causes AIDS. The doctor gave his professional opinion but it was up to her to choose to take the word of one doctor opposed to hundreds of doctors that believe the opposite.

Did You Know....

I walk around every day and see so many different pregnant women and find myself wondering does she have HIV?...How about this one? or that one?

Am I odd for doing this? I don't think I am but then again I have a bit of a biased opinion.

According to avert.org the CDC let out a statement saying that at the end of 2007 571,378 people were reported for having HIV. You still have to think about the people who have not even been tested for the disease. Also one in every five estimated people who have HIV have not even been diagnosed with that disease.

How many women are walking around with this disease and don't know they could be passing it on to their child simply because they haven't been tested for it.

In 2002 there were only two states that required women be tested for HIV once they discovered they were pregnant and that was New York and Conneticut.

Today, in the US and the UK there is an opt out where a woman is automatically tested unless she specifically states that she doesn't want the test.

Did You Know....

I always wondered how would women who are HIV positive try and have their children. I guess I just figured that they'd always be with someone who like them was HIV positive too. It never processed in my mind that there are people who are HIV positive and are with HIV negative people. When that's the case doctors use artificial insemination, which is when a man's sperm is placed inside a woman's uterus.

If the man is the one who is HIV positive then the only way that they can have a child is by sperm washing. Which is where they take the sperm and separate the sperm from the seminal fluid before doing in vitro. It's a very effective procedure but it's only offered at select clinics and can be very hard to get done.

Me, personally I would be scared to try and have a child if I was HIV positive. Even though there are ways to lower the chance of your child contracting the disease anything above .000% is still too much of a percent to me.

All information was gathered from Avert.org under the tab transmission and testing.