As medical advances continue to improve the quality and length of life for people with HIV, more and more people are facing the question of a pregnancy with HIV. But what's the impact on the baby?
With appropriate care, women with HIV now have good chances at being able to deliver healthy babies. In the past -- before early diagnosis of HIV in pregnant woman and highly effective medications -- having HIV-1 (the most common type) increased the risk of spontaneous miscarriage by 67%.
More recent studies of women with good prenatal care and who took HAART drugs (highly active antiretroviral therapy) show that the risk of miscarriage or stillbirth was about the same as uninfected women. A 2004 study looked at women who used more modern antiretroviral drugs and found that women with HIV were less likely to conceive, but once they were pregnant, had miscarriage rates that were similar to HIV-negative women.
In addition, with appropriate treatment and medical care, doctors can do a lot to reduce the risk of the baby contracting HIV during delivery. But working closely with a specialist before and during a pregnancy is key.
Sources:
D'Ulbaldo, Carla, Patrizio Pezzotti, Giovanni Rezza, Margherita Branca, Giuseppe Ippolito, and the DIANAIDS Collaborative Study Group, "Association between HIV-1 infection and miscarriage: a retrospective study." AIDS Jun 1998. Accessed 2 Sept 2008.
Massad, L. Stewart, Gayle Springer, Lisa Jacobson, Heather Watts, Kathryn Anastos, Abner Korn, Helen Cejtin, Alice Stek, Mary Young, Julie Schmidt, and Howard Minkoff, "Pregnancy rates and predictors of conception, miscarriage and abortion in US women with HIV." AIDS Jan 2004. Accessed 2 Sept 2008.
