Abstract

CORDOVA, ENRIQUETA; VAZQUEZ, MÓNICA; DE LA CERDA, DELIA  and  LARTIGUE, TERESA. Evaluación familiar y del desarrollo de dos niñas, hijas de padres con VIH/SIDA. Perinatol. Reprod. Hum. [online]. 2004, vol.18, n.2, pp.132-148. ISSN 2524-1710.

Objective: To describe the family patterns of interaction of two girls born to parents infected with AIDS/HIV, and their behavioral organization around forty days, also the mental and motor development at six and twelve months. Methodology: The two family systems of the two girls with both parent infected by AIDS/HIV, were evaluated using a genogram; they were also appraised with the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assesment Scale (NBAS), between days 39 and 44; and with the Bayley Scale of Infant Development (BSID-II) at six and twelve months of age. Results: In the two cases, the family organization belongs to a young adult couple with HIV positive and two healthy sons; in the first case, the mother is identified as the transmitter; in the second, the father is the spreading agent. There is a weakening effect in the parental subsystem. The couples relations are ambivalent. As the HIV/AIDS advances, the alliances divide the family, excluding several members from the collaboration effort against the illness; this overloads the maternal grandmothers. Hierarchies and limits become diffused, resulting in a lack of a firm and stable emotional contention for the children. The two families are stalled in a situational stress period. In respect to the NBAS the two infants obtained performance from good to excelent (scores 7,8,9) across the clusters; in the BSID-II both cases had a normal score in the first six months of their mental and motor development, while at twelve months of age, the first case continued with a normal development, but the second case was not precisely evaluated due to oppositional behavior. Conclusions: Both family systems are identified with an organization affected by the HIV presence, their structure is promoting a parentalization (role reversal) process and neglect for the children; though the motor and mental development of the two girls were found according to the expected norm for their age.

Keywords : AIDS/HIV; familly structure; behavioral organization; mental and motor developmental indexes.