A Pilot Study for Health Promotion and Protection of Infants with Tongue-tie Related HIV: Healthy Mums and Babies Program

Abstract

Infants in rural and remote populations were presented with positive Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) status when parents were healthy (HIV negative). This was a serious concern to clinicians as to how a newborn baby (within 12 months of birth) could be HIV positive when the parents were HIV negative. The infants had no history of any blood transfusion or surgery. With evolving pathogenesis, viral mutagenesis patterns and spreading mediums of viral diseases, this is a serious question to be addressed. Clinicians treating these infants suspect that this is a case of HIV viral mutagenesis. Assumptions about the cause of tongue ties (ankyloglossia) and its effect on families are prevalent in some rural sub-populations. These underlying myths could lead parent(s) to take their infants to surgical treatment (frenectomy) by unlicensed and untrained persons, sometimes referred to as “quack doctors”. The individuals who perform these frenectomies often use unsterilized surgical instruments that have been contaminated in use with HIV positive patients. As a result, there is a need to conduct a need analysis in rural populations to assess the infant HIV magnitude, including the prevalence and incidence rates of HIV in infants. This research project primarily focuses on finding and contrasting the proportion of HIV positive to HIV negative infants with tongue ties. This project also aims to evaluate the perception and knowledge of tongue ties by mothers or caregivers leading them to seek treatment with unlicensed persons, assessing the impacts of tongue ties on infant breastfeeding and speech. Moreover, to determine treatment needs required on infants with underlying oral health problems due to tongue tie. Keywords: Tongue-tie, Infant HIV, Health Promotion, Needs Analysis, Ankyloglossia, Health Protection