Viral mothers: breastfeeding in the era of HIV/AIDS | by Bernice l. Hausman (University of Michigan)

Viral mothers: breastfeeding in the era of HIV/AIDS trafficking dangerous maternity modern concerns focusing on the concerns with the organs of mothers as vectors of contamination or infection. The book examines how the body of the mother is seen as a conduit for disease, drugs or contaminants that end up in the body of an innocent person - and pure - infant. Paying particular attention to the transmission of HIV through breastfeeding, maternal viral examines kindergarten incarnation ideologies that affect public health protocols and behaviors of mothers in the world.

The medical community has known since the late 1980s that HIV is transmitted through breast milk to mothers infected with their babies. In the highly industrialized countries, HIV-positive mothers are not notified step to breastfeed their babies, but in poor countries, breastfeeding continued to be a predominant and medically recommended practice as a partial solution to the problems of child health and well-being in resource poor settings. Now, in areas of high HIV infection and high infant mortality rates, infant feeding decisions are literally on the life and death. Discussions public health regarding breastfeeding and HIV transmission should take into account both the mortality associated with the step breastfeeding and the possibility of infection with the HIV virus from mother to child.

The transmission of HIV through breastfeeding is a problem of public health affects and increases the contemporary concerns about organisms, germs and the medical environment. These concerns affect all the peoples of the world we are fighting with a sense of health, risk and incarnation of modernity. Viral mothers addresses and explores the dense cultural meanings evoked by postnatal transmission of HIV mothers. In doing so, the book gives attention to fears of contamination, contagion that emerge as consequences of medicalization of modernity. The main themes of the book - risk choice, purity, and denial - define the terms whereby viral mother is comprised of speech and publicly enacted as a set of culturally legible, identifiable concerns.

"Since long... emphasis Hausman on cultural representation rather than real mothers and practices is strategic to remove discussion of personal stories and investment in one of the ways in which this volatile topic becomes embedded in the values cultural, linguistic, and imaging and technologically savvy."
-Alison Bartlett, University of Western Australia

Bernice l. Hausman is Professor of English at Virginia Tech. It is also the author of mother's milk: breastfeeding controversy in American culture.

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