This is a text on HIV infection in women that provides clinical, epidemiological, social and personal perspectives on the disease. Although the AIDS epidemic has generated world-wide concern, very little attention has been paid to its impact on the increasing numbers of women who have been infected. Women with HIV disease are in many, ways a unique group: they can have different clinical symptoms than men, and because they are the ones who bear and usually care for children, they have different psychosocial concerns and needs. This book - written by experts in the fields of law, medicine, nursing, public health, social work, ethics, and psychiatry, and enriched by, personal stories of women who have been living with the disease is a guide to the medical and social treatment of women with HIV. The book begins by discussing clinical care for women with HIV, providing information on how the disease affects women and what type of gynaecological treatment, reproductive counselling and health, obstetrical management, and neuropsychiatric considerations are important. Authors examine why women have been excluded from research trials of new therapies and argue that women must be included in future trials. One chapter explores ethical issues, such as the reproductive rights of women with HIV, and another is devoted to legal conflicts surrounding such issues as discrimination, government benefits, and custody rights. The final third of the book deals with ways to deliver support servic