This Mother's Day, ensure babies everywhere are born free of HIV

May 11 2012

Ahead of Mother's Day on May 13, UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe writes in this post in the Huffington Post's "Global Motherhood" blog, "Together we can go from 390,000 children becoming infected with HIV each year to zero," and he highlights "three simple things we can all do to ensure babies everywhere can be born free from HIV."   

"First, get the facts," Sidibe writes, noting, "We can dramatically reduce the risk of HIV transmission to a child to less than five percent if a pregnant woman living with HIV has access to antiretroviral drugs." He continues, "Second, get the message out," stating that "we can do a lot more to make sure information and services reach families in need." Finally, he says to "make every day Mother's Day," and tells the story of serodiscordant couple Charity and Ibrahim, who bore an HIV-negative son four years ago. He concludes, "This Mother's Day, join UNAIDS as we support and celebrate families and work to ensure babies everywhere are born free from HIV" (5/9).