There is a lot of material available regarding HIV transmission so if you would like to talk about it with your teen, you should make sure to gather the most information possible so that you will be able to answer all the possible questions.

Some ways of contracting HIV

In the majority of the cases people contract the infection through changing body fluids with an infected person. At that moment the infected person may not know that he or she has been infected because usually the symptoms take a longer period of time to show.

hiv-transmissionThe people who are contracting HIV may seem totally normal and healthy, not having any symptoms of the infection. Nonetheless he or she might already be a carrier. Also keep in mind that both men and women could carry the virus.

The most common way of getting infected is to have unprotected sex with an infected person.

Another way of HIV transmission in case of teenagers is by sharing needles when using IV (intravenous) drugs. Also in case you are accidentally prickled by a needle, you could contract the virus.

Contracting HIV is also possible through getting in contact with infected blood and having an open sore. This is because the virus can enter the body through the sore and it will get directly into the blood stream, spreading all over the body and attacking the immune system.

How to prevent HIV transmission

When talking to your teen you should tell him or her that the most certain way to make sure that he or she won’t contract HIV or any other STD or STI is to practice complete abstinence. Even though they might be using birth control methods, such as the birth control pill, they aren’t protected.

One of the ways to avoid contracting HIV is to be using the condom. For this to be effective it must be used correctly. Apart from theory, there are a lot of teens who get pregnant when using a condom, so they could also contract some kind of infection.

A better way of avoiding HIV transmission is to be using a condom along with a spermicide, but not even this protection is a perfect one. Another important piece of information is that the infection could be contracted through oral sex as well.

Although contracting HIV isn’t one of the topics that parents like to discuss with their children, it needs to be done. Besides all these you may also want to bring up the topic of drugs in the discussions. Naturally teens should never be using any kinds of drugs.

Nonetheless from the point of view of transmission it is important to state that they shouldn’t use any injection drugs under any circumstances. Also in case they have to use needles to inject medication, each time they should be using a new needle.

As you may see, there is a lot to say about HIV transmission, and you should make sure to cover the largest ground possible.