Question
What things are important about HIV treatment during pregnancy?
24 June 2011. Related: All topics, Pregnancy, Starting treatment.
What are the four factors to consider before deciding which treatment and when to start treatment for a HIV positive pregnant women to prevent her baby becoming infected?
Answer
There are many things to consider whenever anyone starts treatment rather than a list of only four.
Pregnancy doesn’t alter or change very much, other than perhaps not using one drug (efavirenz) during the first trimester. The goal of treatment in pregnancy is to reduce viral load as low as possible before delivery. If viral load is undetectable, the risk of HIV transmission is reduced to less than 1%.
In terms of deciding when to start treatment, this need to be early enough for viral load to be undetectable when the baby comes to be born. For women who become pregnant when not already on HIV treatment, this is usually after the first timester (ie after the first 12 weeks). Mourning sickness has usually reduced by then so that you are not having to deal with this when starting treatment.
The other things to think about are based on getting a combination that is tolerable and easy to take, with few side effects. And, of course, infromation and support for adherence, so that you don;t miss doses of your meds.
These two online guides have lots of information about pregnancy and HIV treatment.
Guide to HIV, Pregnancy and Women’s Health
and
Introduction to Combination Therapy
I hope that your pregnancy goes well and please let us know if we can help further, or again in the future.
First you need to take an HIV test to find out whether you have HIV or not.
If you have already tested positive, you need to see a doctor who will text your CD4 count (and other tests). The information from these tests will determine whether you need treatment yet.
if i am positive what i do?