pregnant and breastfeeding

hiv stands forhuman immunodeficiency virus. jo rowan, senior health trainer,terrence higgins trust basically, hiv is an illness.it attacks your immune system. the main ways of catching hiv are through unprotected sexwith somebody who has hiv. other ways that the viruscan be passed on are from a woman to her childduring childbirth, or things like sharinginjecting drug use equipment. over the years i always thoughti would never be able to have a baby.

sarah. contracted hivthrough unprotected sex at 17 couldn't even look at babies.it was horrible. then, as time went on,it was sort of 15% chance and then seven per cent chance that thebaby would contract it mother-to-baby. then it went down to one per cent. many women assumethat if they are pregnant and they find out they're hiv-positive, that they'll pass on hivto their baby. but that's not the case these days.

with good treatment, they cannot pass on hiv to their baby. as unprotected sex was not an option, sarah conceived throughartificial insemination with the help of a clinicespecially for people with hiv. as soon as we were marriedwe started trying. and... it took just over a yearto actually conceive. i suppose becauseit's slightly clinical or technical in the way that it has to be done, it may be a bit harder to conceive.

but all worth it in the end. there are three main waysin which pregnant women can avoid passing on hiv to their babies. the first is that they can takehiv treatment themselves. the second is that, in some cases,they may be offered a caesarean section rather than a vaginal delivery, which can help reduce the chanceof passing on hiv. the third thingis to avoid breast-feeding. it took me probably the first monthto accept that i couldn't breast-feed

and to actually...for her to stop seeking as well. that was really hard, really difficult. i had to be on the right medication. there's lots of differentcombination therapy, but you have to be on a specific onethat stops the baby from... the virus crossing over the placenta,so the baby contracts it. you have to be on the right medicationto stop that. i also knew aboutthe delivery side of things. they say that they do a caesareanbecause there was less chance

of the baby getting the virusthrough birth that way. but with the viral loadbeing undetectable, there is a chance of givingvaginal delivery as well, so i just followed all the guidelines because all i wantedwas my baby to be born safely and well. you'll be referred toa specialist hiv doctor who will help not onlyin terms of your own health and what you need in terms oftreatment and good health, but will also help preventyour baby getting hiv.

had all the scans in the middle ofthe normal ones that you might have, just to check that the babywas developing normally and everything was going well,because of the medication. i just did what i could to be safe. when i gave birth, they also have to be put onhiv medication as a preventative measurefor the first month. once you've given birth,then your baby will be tested for hiv. you should know within a few dayswhether the baby has hiv or not

and you'll be given a seriesof follow-up tests just to check that the babyis doing well and is healthy. the first one was definitelyvery nerve-wracking and... i get emotional. i think we actually cracked opena bottle of champagne and said, "that's it, brilliant," because it was really goodto find out that she didn't have it. i would just want to reassure women,no matter where they come from or what type of strain of hiv they have,

we have very good medications in the uk and we can treat all pregnant womenwho have hiv. have the tests donebecause if you were positive, if you can get on the medicationstraight away, it definitely decreases the risk and hopefully preventmother-to-baby transmission. but also i would say to anybody that is thinking or thinks thatmaybe they can't ever have a life and have a baby and have a normal life,the proof is in the pudding.

i'm here, i'm with my husband. i've been positive 17 years.i met my husband five years ago. i've got a lovely home, a lovely husbandand a lovely baby. so it's just proof it can be doneand it can be done safely.