Lessons on HIV and AIDS: The unborn baby

HIV stands for human immun­ode­fi­ciency virus. It attacks the white blood cells — the part of the blood that fights ill­ness. HIV there­fore makes you very vul­ner­able to infec­tions. We recom­mend you get your copy of Nutri­tion and HIV: A New Model for Treat­ment by Mary Romeyn M.D.

An unborn baby is at risk of con­tract­ing HIV if its mother is HIV pos­it­ive before she becomes preg­nant, or if she’s exposed to HIV dur­ing preg­nancy. Expos­ure to HIV can hap­pen in sev­eral ways, includ­ing through sexual con­tact with someone who is HIV pos­it­ive, and by being injec­ted with an infec­ted needle.

As part of their routine antenatal care pro­gramme, all preg­nant women in Eng­land should be offered a blood test for HIV. If HIV is dia­gnosed, steps can be taken to help reduce the like­li­hood of passing the infec­tion to the baby. These steps include the use of anti­ret­ro­viral med­ic­a­tion for the mother and her new­born baby, giv­ing birth by Caesarean sec­tion, and avoid­ing breastfeeding.

If you’re HIV pos­it­ive, but you’re well dur­ing your preg­nancy, there is no increased risk of your baby being under­weight, or pre­ma­ture. How­ever, if you are ill dur­ing preg­nancy, your baby is more likely to need spe­cial care when it is born.

Blood tests can be car­ried out after birth to find out whether your baby has HIV. When your baby is first born, they will have some HIV anti­bod­ies (infection-fighting parts of the blood) which come from you, but this does not mean that they have HIV them­selves. A proper dia­gnosis, detect­ing the act­ive virus in the blood, can usu­ally be made by the time your baby is 18 months old. How­ever, some tests can give accur­ate res­ults sooner.

PEP (post expos­ure pro­phy­laxis) and HIV

It’s pos­sible, but it doesn’t always work.

If you’ve been exposed to HIV (human immun­ode­fi­ciency virus), PEP can stop you becom­ing infec­ted with it. For example, if you’ve:

• had unpro­tec­ted sex,
• had sex with someone who knew they had HIV and the con­dom broke, or
• been injured acci­dent­ally with an HIV-infected needle.

PEP is a course of treat­ment with anti-HIV med­ic­a­tion. Start tak­ing the medi­cines as soon as pos­sible after you’ve been exposed to HIV, ideally within a few hours. PEP is unlikely to work after 72 hours (three days) and won’t usu­ally be pre­scribed. The medi­cines are taken every day for four weeks. For a new model of treat­ment, we recom­mend you get more inform­a­tion from Nutri­tion and HIV: A New Model for Treat­ment by Mary Romeyn M.D.

PEP makes infec­tion with HIV less likely. How­ever, it’s not a cure for HIV, and it doesn’t work in all cases. Some strains of HIV aren’t affected by the medi­cines, and the treat­ment may not work if you take the medi­cines incor­rectly, or you don’t take them soon enough.

PEP can have severe side effects, such as:

• pro­longed headaches,
• diarrhoea,
• nausea, and
• vomit­ing.

If you want PEP, visit your nearest sexual health (GUM) clinic or A&E depart­ment. You’ll be asked some ques­tions, for example:

• who you had sex with, to assess your risk of expos­ure to HIV, and
• whether you had oral, vaginal or anal sex.

PEP and HIV tests

You’ll be asked to take an HIV test before tak­ing PEP treat­ment, to check whether you already have HIV. If you don’t agree to an HIV test, you won’t be given PEP.

You’ll also need an HIV test after the treat­ment to check that it’s been successful.

Safe sex

If you develop HIV, it can’t be cured. Don’t rely on PEP to pre­vent HIV because it doesn’t always work.

Using a con­dom is the best way to pre­vent the spread of sexu­ally trans­mit­ted infec­tions (STIs), includ­ing HIV.

Human papil­loma virus (HPV)

The terms HPV and HIV should not be con­fused — they are not connected.

Human papil­loma virus (HPV) is the name for a fam­ily of vir­uses that affect your skin and the moist mem­branes lin­ing your body; for example, in your cer­vix, anus, mouth and throat.

Some types of HPV can cause abnor­mal tis­sue growth and other changes to cells. Infec­tion with some vir­uses from the HPV fam­ily can cause cer­vical can­cer and gen­ital warts. Oth­ers can cause minor prob­lems, such as com­mon skin warts and verrucas.

Gen­ital HPV infec­tion is passed on through sexual contact.

Human immun­ode­fi­ciency virus (HIV) is an infec­tion which can some­times develop into Acquired Immun­ode­fi­ciency Syn­drome (AIDS). It is most com­monly passed on by sexual contact.

HIV attacks the infection-fighting cells of the immune sys­tem. Then, over time, the immune sys­tem weak­ens and becomes unable to defend the body against bac­teria, vir­uses and germs.