When the train pulled into the Beijing railway station, Mei Zi’s heart was pounding. She had travelled from a small village near Shenzhen in south-eastern China to the capital. It was the winter of 2009 and Mei Zi was about to have her first glimpse of the man she was planning to marry.
“I will always remember the exciting and emotional moment when we first met,” said Mei Zi. “He picked me up at the railway station. He had bought me a red down jacket.”
Mei Zi met her husband through an online chat group for people living with HIV.
“After I found out I was HIV-positive in 2007, I thought that I would never be happy again,” said Mei Zi, who preferred not to use her real name for this story. Soon after getting married, she became pregnant. “At that time, I had been diagnosed with both HIV and hepatitis C and my husband was also living with HIV,” she said. “So I decided to have an abortion and not to have any children in the future.”
But in March 2014, she became pregnant again. This time she was receiving care from the Beijing You’an Hospital STD/AIDS Clinical Centre and Director Sun Lijun put her fears to rest. The doctor said that by taking antiretroviral medicine, Mei Zi could prevent the transmission of HIV to her baby and that there was also effective treatment for hepatitis C.
“The doctor’s guidance and encouragement spurred me on,” said Mei Zi.
Six months into her pregnancy, her bile acid level became dangerously high and she was hospitalized.
“Throughout the entire process, the doctors and nurses at You’an hospital did not discriminate or treat me as different,” said Mei Zi. “I was deeply moved.”
In her 34th week, the doctor told her that she would have a caesarean section the next day. Mei Zi gave birth to a baby boy in November 2014. He was free of HIV and weighed 2.2 kilograms.
“He doesn’t talk much, so everyone calls him Calm Angel,” said Mei Zi. “I think my Calm Angel is a gift from God. Now, when he is cheeky, I ignore him just to tease him a little and then he runs to hide in my arms.”
Mei Zi is one of 15 mothers living with HIV in China who have shared their stories after they successfully gave birth to healthy children. Their voices and photographs are featured in two books, My child and I and Women’s power, which were launched on 6 May at an event held in Ditan Hospital, Beijing, organized by the Women’s Network against AIDS in China and the Beijing Home of Red Ribbon.
Women living with HIV in China are often caught between an immense social pressure to become mothers and the reverse pressure to remain childless because of the possibility of passing on the virus to their babies. With antiretroviral treatment that risk has been significantly reduced.
The first pilot programme to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in China began in 2001 in Shangcai County, Henan Province, and was scaled up across the country. According to government estimates, 82.6% of mothers living with HIV were receiving antiretroviral medicine by 2014 and mother-to-child transmission had fallen to 6.1% from 34.8% a decade earlier. In 2010, the government expanded its prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV programme to include the prevention of syphilis and hepatitis B, which can also be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy and delivery.
The women featured in the book come from many different parts of China and most were telling their stories publicly for the first time. There is Tang Juan (also not her real name), who is the mother of an eight-year-old girl. She was the first person to receive treatment to prevent HIV transmission to her baby in Xiangfang in Hu Bei Province.
She had a message for other women living with HIV, “I want you to know that there is hope. You only need to hold on to it bravely.”
UNAIDS, UN Women and the embassy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland supported the production of the books, and their representatives participated in the launch.
Catherine Sozi, UNAIDS Country Director for China, said, “These stories show that women living with HIV can have healthy babies born free from HIV as long as they have access to friendly health services geared to ensuring that they get treatment early and are supported throughout their pregnancy and after delivery.”
While some women featured in the books reported experiencing discrimination from health-care workers, many shared Mei Zi’s positive experience.
Chen Hang, Secretary of the Beijing Home of Red Ribbon, said, “The Beijing Home of Red Ribbon is committed to supporting people living with HIV and making sure all people are treated with dignity.”
