April 2009
This guide aims to help you get the most out of your own HIV treatment and care if you are considering pregnancy or during your pregnancy.
Introduction
Background and general questions
- If you have just been diagnosed with HIV
- Can HIV-positive women become mothers?
- Are pregnant women automatically offered HIV testing?
- How do HIV drugs protect the baby?
- Is it really safe to take HIV medicines during pregnancy?
- Will being pregnant make my HIV worse?
Protecting and ensuring the mother’s health
Transmission
- How and why does transmission happen?
- Transmission during pregnancy (in utero)
- During labour and delivery (intrapartum transmission)
- Breastfeeding
Planning your pregnancy
- Preconception, planned pregnancy, and your rights to have a baby
- What to do when one partner is HIV-positive and the other is HIV-negative
- When the man is HIV-positive and the woman HIV-negative
- When the woman is HIV-positive and the man is HIV-negative
- The Swiss Statement
- When both partners are HIV-positive
- Can I get help if I am having difficulty conceiving?
Prenatal care and HIV treatment
- What is prenatal care?
- Does every HIV-positive woman need to use treatment in pregnancy?
- What if I discover I am HIV-positive late in pregnancy?
- What if I am already using HIV treatment when I become pregnant?
HIV drugs during pregnancy
- Which drugs should I use?
- Are any drugs not recommended in pregnancy?
- Should I expect more side effects when I am pregnant?
Resistance, monitoring and other tests
- What about resistance?
- Will I need extra tests and monitoring?
- Are there any tests that I should not have?
- Opportunist infections, vaccines and herpes
- Hepatitits and TB coinfection
HIV drugs and the baby’s health
Choices for delivery and use of C-section
After the baby is born
- What will I need to consider for my own health?
- How and when will I know that my baby is HIV-negative?
- Will my baby need to take HIV drugs after he/she is born?
- Will I need to use contraception after the baby is born?
Feeding your baby: risks and options
Tips to help with adherence
Tips to help with nausea or morning sickness
Charts – adherence support and your treatment history
Additional info
We hope that the information here will be useful at all stages—before, during and after pregnancy. It should help whether you are already on treatment or not. It includes information for your own health and for the health of your baby.
HIV information dates quickly, please call to see if up-dated information is available. Not-for-profit copying is encouraged or call for additional free copies.
Written by.Polly Clayden. Produced by HIV i-Base. Drawings: Beth Higgins.