Can a baby be infected with HIV while in the womb?
Yes, it's possible for HIV to be passed from you to your baby
. This can happen: during pregnancy. during labour and birth.
How does HIV affect the fetus?
During pregnancy,
HIV can pass through the placenta and infect the fetus
. During labor and delivery, the baby may be exposed to the virus from a woman's blood and other fluids. When a woman goes into labor, the amniotic sac breaks (her water breaks). Once this occurs, the risk of transmitting HIV to the baby increases.
How likely is it for a mother with HIV to transmit it to her baby?
In the absence of intervention, the rate of transmission of HIV from a mother living with HIV to her child during pregnancy, labour, delivery or breastfeeding ranges from
15% to 45%
.
What are the signs of HIV in pregnancy?
- Fatigue (feeling very tired)
- Fever, chills or sweating at night (also called night sweats)
- Enlarged lymph nodes (swollen glands in the neck and groin)
- Mouth ulcers (sores) or sore throat.
- Muscle aches.
- Rash.
Can a mother with HIV have a healthy baby?
Yes, it's possible for an HIV-positive woman to give birth to a baby who does not have HIV
. If you're HIV-positive and are pregnant, you should consult a health care provider who knows about HIV disease. Without treatment, about 25 percent of babies born to women with HIV are also infected.
Can I infect someone while on ARVs?
People living with HIV who take antiretroviral medications daily as prescribed and who achieve and then maintain an undetectable viral load have effectively no risk of sexually transmitting the virus to an HIV-negative partner.
What happens if you take ARVs while negative?
“When a HIV-positive person is given ARVs, it boosts their immunity, but when a HIV-negative person takes them, it just
undermines their immunity and interferes with their body organs
.”
How long can a person taking Arvs live?
A 2017 study in the journal AIDS found that the additional life expectancy for people with HIV at age 20 during the early monotherapy era was 11.8 years. However, that number rose to
54.9 years
for the most recent combination antiretroviral era.
The bottom line is that if you're living with HIV and have an undetectable viral load,
you will still test positive for HIV if you get tested
. But, this is expected, and doesn't mean that your treatment is not working or that you aren't undetectable.
Is undetectable same as negative?
Being HIV positive and having an undetectable viral load would be considered the same thing as being HIV negative
. Instead, we would frown upon those who don't know their status. Being HIV positive and having an undetectable viral load would be accepted, especially within the gay community.
How will I know if I am undetectable?
By regular viral load monitoring
. This is a blood test to measure how many particles of HIV there are in a small sample of your blood. If your viral load is under 200 copies per millilitre, you're considered virally suppressed and unable to pass HIV on.
Can you go from undetectable to detectable?
An undetectable status does not indicate a cure. Although ART prevents the virus from creating copies of itself, the virus remains dormant in the body. However,
stopping treatment or missing doses allows the virus to begin multiplying, causing it to become detectable in the blood again
.
