The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is an infection that can be transmitted from you to your baby during gestation or birth, or afterward via your breast milk. Left untreated, HIV can cause a deadly disease called acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).
Here's what you need to know to keep your baby safe if you have HIV/AIDS and are trying to conceive or are already pregnant, plus information about pregnancy-safe treatment options.
How common is HIV in pregnancy?
In 2020, approximately 258,000 women in America were estimated to be HIV positive, and nearly 7,000 women received an HIV diagnosis in 2019.[1]
The good news: Perinatal HIV diagnoses (i.e., mother-to-child transmission of HIV) have fallen by more than 95 percent since the early 1990s.[2]
If you are pregnant and know you are HIV positive, seek a doctor who has experience treating HIV-positive patients (or, alternately, you might choose to be co-managed by an obstetrician and an infectious disease doctor during your pregnancy).
Who is most at risk of HIV?
The most common way for women to contract HIV is by having unprotected intercourse with infected partners or by sharing drug needles with an infected person.
The best way to avoid infection is to use condoms during sexual intercourse. If you want to become pregnant, you and your partner should both be tested. (You will be asked if you want to be tested as part of the routine blood work done early in your pregnancy, but your partner will not.)[3]
What are the symptoms of HIV?
Depending on the stage of the infection, symptoms can include:
- Unexplained weight loss
- Loss of appetite
- Generalized malaise
- Prolonged swelling of the lymph nodes
- Pain
- Numbness, or tingling all over
- Skin sores
- Abnormal Pap tests
What to know about HIV/AIDs if you're pregnant
Although AIDS is still a deadly disease, there are drug regimens that can keep the virus in check. And luckily, treatment during pregnancy can dramatically reduce the risk of the mother passing the infection on to her baby. And delivering via elective C-section lowers that risk even more.[4]
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During labor, your practitioner will monitor your viral load. Depending on how low the viral load is, you may be able to have a vaginal delivery, but greater viral loads may require a C-section.
If you are already HIV positive or have AIDS, talk to your doctor about your medication options. Some can be quite dangerous to your growing baby, while others seem to be less damaging.
Still others, like zidovudine (AZT), seem to significantly lower transmission of the virus from you to your baby. You should take this throughout your pregnancy and will be given it via IV during delivery.[5]
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