Reassurance for pregnant women regarding ART side effects
Most pregnant women are concerned about taking medications, particularly in the first 3 months (trimester) of a pregnancy as this is a particularly vulnerable time for the foetus. People with chronic conditions usually need to keep taking their treatments during pregnancy and it is important that they understand how the benefits balance against the risk of doing so. In high income countries such as Canada and Australia the transmission of HIV from an HIV positive woman to child is very low (less than 1%) and this is essentially due to Anti-retroviral therapy (ART). Recent research in Canada reviewed health related information from pregnant women over a period of 17 years up until 2015 and data from 214,240 pregnancies, of which 343 were HIV positive women was looked at. (more…)