Hi,<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Testing babies for HIV is a bit more complicated then testing other\u00a0people. 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\u00a0look for these. So despite not necessarily having HIV newborn babies of\u00a0positive mothers would test positive.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
You can find more information about testing babies for HIV<\/a>\u00a0in our guide.<\/p>\n