Health Topic

HIV and Pregnancy

HIV positive and pregnant or thinking about HIV and pregnancy? Learn how with early testing and medication you can significantly lower your risk of passing HIV to your baby.

Reviewed Reviewed by a registered pharmacistGeneral information

Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About HIV and Pregnancy

If you are pregnant or planning to get pregnant, it's important to get tested for HIV as soon as possible. If you find out that do have HIV, you can start treatment right away to protect your health and the health of your baby.

If you are pregnant and have HIV, there is a risk of passing HIV to your baby. It can happen in three ways:

  • During pregnancy
  • During childbirth, especially if it is vaginal childbirth
  • During breastfeeding

But having HIV doesn't mean that you can't have children. Treatment with a combination of HIV medicines can help prevent passing HIV to your baby and protect your own health.

There are several different steps you can take to help prevent passing HIV to your baby:

  • Taking HIV medicines. HIV medicines reduce the amount of HIV in the body (viral load) to a very low level. The goal is to get your viral load so low that a standard lab test can't detect it. This is called having an "undetectable viral load." Having an undetectable viral load is the best thing you can do to stay healthy and prevent your baby from getting HIV. These medicines will also help protect your health. Most HIV medicines are safe to use during pregnancy. They don't usually raise the risk of birth defects. But it is important to talk with your health care provider about the risks and benefits of the different medicines. Together you can decide which medicines are right for you. Then you need to make sure you take your medicines regularly.
  • If needed, having a cesarean delivery. If your viral load is not reduced enough by the medicines, having a cesarean delivery (C-Section) can help prevent passing HIV to your baby.
  • Giving HIV medicines to the baby. Your baby will get HIV medicines as soon as possible after birth. The medicines protect your baby from infection from any HIV that passed from you during childbirth. Which medicine your baby gets depends on several factors, including what your viral load was just before you gave birth. Your baby will need to take medicines for 4 to 6 weeks. He or she will get several HIV tests over the first few months.
  • Not breastfeeding. Breast milk can have HIV in it. In the United States, infant formula is safe and readily available. So the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that if you have HIV, you should feed your baby formula instead of breastfeeding.

If you are trying to get pregnant, it's important for your partner to also get tested for HIV.

If your partner does have HIV and you do not, talk to your provider about taking PrEP. PrEP stands for pre-exposure prophylaxis. This means taking medicines to prevent HIV. The PrEP helps to protect both you and your baby from HIV.

It sits within Women, Pregnancy and Reproduction, Immune System and Female Reproductive System.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on HIV and Pregnancy

463 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Research already completed

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

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Treatments and Therapies

Prevention and Risk Factors

Related Issues

Clinical Trials

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under HIV Infections, Pregnancy. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for HIV and Pregnancy, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.