Yes. With\u00a0HIV treatment (ART), HIV positive women can safely have children. ART makes sure there is very little risk of transmitting HIV to the\u00a0baby.<\/strong><\/p>\n Many thousands of women have taken ART\u00a0during pregnancy without complications to their babies.<\/p>\n This has resulted in tens of\u00a0thousands of HIV negative babies.<\/p>\n The exact way that mothers pass HIV onto babies is still unknown. Without ART, about 1 in 4 babies born to HIV positive women would become HIV positive.<\/strong><\/p>\n The majority of transmissions occur near the time of or during labour and delivery<\/strong>. Transmission can also occur through breastfeeding.<\/strong><\/p>\n Certain factors seem to make transmission during labour much more likely.<\/p>\n If a woman has a high viral load the risk of transmission to her baby is much greater than if it is very low .The aim of ART\u00a0is to make sure that her viral load is as low as possible, particularly at the time of delivery.<\/p>\n This will also give the most benefit to the mother herself.<\/p>\n Other risk factors are having a low CD4 count or other infections.<\/p>\n The mother\u2019s health directly relates to the HIV status of the baby<\/p>\n Whether or not the baby\u2019s father is HIV positive does\u00a0not affect whether the baby is born HIV positive<\/p>\n Yes. Using a combination of three or more HIV\u00a0drugs leads to\u00a0a transmission rate of less than 1%.<\/strong><\/p>\n Reducing the risk of a baby becoming HIV positive was an early benefit of HIV drugs.<\/p>\n Thousands of women have taken these drugs all over the world without complications.<\/p>\n Treatment guidelines recommend ART for\u00a0all HIV positive people \u2013 including all pregnant women \u2013 even if they are well with a high CD4 count.<\/p>\n This is a very commonly used phrase. This means that generally your HIV is treated as if you are not pregnant.<\/p>\n Treatment guidelines recommend ART for\u00a0all HIV positive people, even if they are well with a high CD4 count.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Can HIV positive women safely have children? Yes. With\u00a0HIV treatment (ART), HIV positive women can safely have children. ART makes sure there is very little risk of transmitting HIV to the\u00a0baby. Many thousands of women have taken ART\u00a0during pregnancy without …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":224,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-231","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/ttfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/ttfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/ttfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/ttfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/ttfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/ttfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/231\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/ttfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/ttfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How is HIV transmitted from mother to a baby?<\/h2>\n
Viral load is the strongest risk factor<\/h4>\n
Other risk factors<\/h4>\n
Do HIV drugs protect the baby?<\/h2>\n
Treat as non-pregnant adult<\/h2>\n