HIV/AIDS and Pregnancy

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Basics

• Summary
• Start Here
• Prevention and Risk Factors

Learn More

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See, Play and Learn

• Videos and Tutorials

Research

• Statistics and Research
• Clinical Trials
• Journal Articles

Resources

• Reference Desk
• Find an Expert

For You

• Patient Handouts

Summary

If you have HIV/AIDS and find out you are pregnant or think you may be pregnant, you should let your health care provider know as soon as possible. Some HIV/AIDS medicines may harm your baby. Your health care provider may want you to take different medicines or change the doses.

It is also possible to give HIV to your baby. This is most likely to happen around the time you give birth. For this reason, treatment during this time is very important for protecting your baby from infection. Several treatments may prevent the virus from spreading from you to your baby. Your health care provider can recommend the best one for you.

Your baby will also need to have treatment for at least the first six weeks of life. Regular testing will be needed to find out if your baby is infected.

Start Here

• HIV and Pregnancy (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) Also in Spanish
• Pregnancy and Childbirth (AIDS.gov)

Prevention and Risk Factors

• Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (AIDSinfo)

Videos and Tutorials

• Preventing the Spread of HIV - Mother-to-Child (Healthy Roads Media)

Statistics and Research

• HIV among Pregnant Women, Infants, and Children (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Clinical Trials

• ClinicalTrials.gov: HIV/AIDS and Pregnancy (National Institutes of Health)

Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)

• Article: Sociodemographic differences among HIV-positive and HIV-negative recently pregnant women in...
• Article: Neurocognitive development in HIV-positive children is correlated with plasma viral...
• Article: Estimated Perinatal HIV Infection Among Infants Born in the United...
• HIV/AIDS and Pregnancy -- see more articles

Reference Desk

• AIDSinfo Glossary (AIDSinfo) Also in Spanish

Find an Expert

• AIDS.gov
• AIDSinfo (Department of Health and Human Services) Also in Spanish
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Also in Spanish
• NIAID Division of AIDS (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases)

Patient Handouts

• HIV/AIDS - pregnancy and infants (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish