Q and A

Question

How will i know my baby has HIV?

I am pregnant and o nHIV treatment. How will i know if my baby has HIV?

Answer

Hi,

Congratulations on your pregnancy. It is great you are on treatment. This is good for your health and will help prevent your baby being born with HIV.

Testing babies for HIV is a bit more complicated then testing other people. This is because newborn babies will carry their mum’s antibodies. Antibodies are what your body uses to fight viruses. The HIV tests that are usually used look for these. So despite not necessarily having HIV newborn babies of positive mothers would test positive.

This is why a different test is usually used. This is called a HIV PCR DNA test. This looks for the virus itself, rather than the body’s response to it.

In the UK babies are usually tested when they are born, at six weeks and at three months. if these tests are all negative and you are not breastfeeding this will show that your baby doesn’t have HIV.

You can find more information about testing babies for HIV in our guide.

You can also find general information about HIV and pregnancy on our website.

2 comments

  1. Simon Collins

    Hi Precious, it sounds like your doctor may be giving you good advice. If you have both HIV and TB it is important to have treatment for both. Please ask your doctor or nurse to expalin in more detail if you are not sure about anything.

  2. precious

    Hi..I’m a girl of 20 years old from South Africa. Since I started my treatment last year on November and they didn’t meantion anything about taking T.B treatment suddenly this month when I went to clinic for my treatment they also gave me treatment for T.B and said is for preventing it..so I wanted to know it is necessary?