Question
My boyfriend is HIV positive, can I get pregnant?
26 March 2012. Related: All topics, Pregnancy, Sero different couples.
Hello everyone I am a 26 year old woman. My boyfriend is HIV positive. We have lived together for one year, having protective sex .
Is it possible to have a child without being affected?
Answer
Thank-you for your question.
It’s great to hear that your relationship is going well and that you want to have children together.
A lot of couples have one person that is positive and the other negative. This is sometimes called being in a serodifferent or serodiscordant couple.
You can reduce your risk down to almost zero. The reason that the risk is not zero is because scientifically you can not prove that something in the future can never happen. The best is to say it becomes very unlikely for you to catch HIV.
This is an outline of how to reduce your risk from natural conception. You need to do all of the following, except the PrEP if your doctor does not think this necessary.
- Check that you are both able to have a baby. This service is usually easy to access at a fertility clinic.
- You should also both have a check up to make sure you don’t have an STI – this is also for the baby’s health.
- Your partner will need to be on HIV treatment. He will need to have an undetectable viral load for at least six months. In heterosexual studies this shows the risk of transmission to drop to close to zero.
- The fertility clinic can also help you know when during each month you are most likely to be able to conceive.
- Talk to your doctor or your partner’s doctor so they know this and can help. This doctor may be able to give you an additional safety medicine called Truvada. This contains two anti HIV meds that you could take the day before to have sex and an hour or two afterwards. This is called PrEP, although many doctors think this additional safety is not needed.
- Then, only during the day or two when you are most fertile.
- Remember to use condoms again at all other times, and especially during pregnancy when your risk to catch HIV increases.
Several years ago people used to a process called ‘sperm washing’. This is when a sample of semen is treated to remove HIV from the fluid that the sperm is in. It is only the fluid that is infectious. As well as making conception very medical, the conception rate is lower – less than 15% I think. It can be quite expensive and it’s not available everywhere.
For more information see the i-Base guide to HIV and pregnancy.
Hi Basetsana,
I really sorry to hear about your miscarriages. Especially as I think your man must already be on HIV treatment (ART) with an undetectable viral load. This means he cannot transmit HIV even without using condoms. So you should be able to conceive naturally. Please see U=U for more information.
But have you talked to the doctors about your miscarriages? Do you know if there’s a reason for this? Perhaps you can ask if you could see a specialist about it.
I am a woman who is also in a relationship with a hiv positive man and i am negative i want a chld badly because iv had 6 miscarriages before wat can i do?
Good Morning Valerie,
What a lovely story for Valentine’s Day! And there is good news too. In 2016 the PARTNER study looked at couples where one was HIV positive and the other wasn’t. This study reported that almost 900 couples had sex more than 58,000 times without using condoms – and without a single case of HIV transmission. So the risk has been called ‘zero’ if your boyfriend is on meds with an undetectable viral load.
Many women from around the world have had healthy HIV negative babies if they – or their partner – are on meds and undetectable. Here is the i-Base guide to HIV, pregnancy and women’s health.
Good evening
I am a 24 years old woman. I have been involved with this other guy that I love so much and he loves me too, it’s been a year now. My boyfriend confessed to me that he is HIV positive and his also on meds. The best part is that we always protected ourselves when make love, I quickly ran to the doctor for an HIV test and results came back negative. Now my boyfriend wants to marry and start a family with me. I’d love start a family with him but am scared of being infected too.
Please advise on what to do,. I really love this man and I would love to spend the rest of my love with him.
Hi Bongi,
i-base can’t tell you what to do in this situation. However, have you tried discussing HIV with your partner?
Thank you for this question I’m hiv positive and I’m scared to tell ma pattern about it .I need help
Hi Pash, thanks for adding your experience :)
Hi Faith
i just wanna thank you for asking that question, as for me I did not have the courage to ask… I am also in the same situation and you have unlighted me to be fully informed you brought faith in me.
Hi Faith,
It’s great that you are thinking of having a child. Many couples where one partner now safely have children.
We get a lot of similar questions to yours so please use this link for more information:
http://i-base.info/qa/faqs-on-having-a-baby
My partner is HIV positive and i am negative. We’ve been are in a relationship for a while now and we want to start a family – can you tell us how we can have a baby without getting me getting HIV please.