Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 18, 2024, 11:36:03 pm

Login with username, password and session length


Members
Stats
  • Total Posts: 772783
  • Total Topics: 66296
  • Online Today: 328
  • Online Ever: 5484
  • (June 18, 2021, 11:15:29 pm)
Users Online
Users: 0
Guests: 201
Total: 201

Welcome


Welcome to the POZ Community Forums, a round-the-clock discussion area for people with HIV/AIDS, their friends/family/caregivers, and others concerned about HIV/AIDS.  Click on the links below to browse our various forums; scroll down for a glance at the most recent posts; or join in the conversation yourself by registering on the left side of this page.

Privacy Warning:  Please realize that these forums are open to all, and are fully searchable via Google and other search engines. If you are HIV positive and disclose this in our forums, then it is almost the same thing as telling the whole world (or at least the World Wide Web). If this concerns you, then do not use a username or avatar that are self-identifying in any way. We do not allow the deletion of anything you post in these forums, so think before you post.

  • The information shared in these forums, by moderators and members, is designed to complement, not replace, the relationship between an individual and his/her own physician.

  • All members of these forums are, by default, not considered to be licensed medical providers. If otherwise, users must clearly define themselves as such.

  • Forums members must behave at all times with respect and honesty. Posting guidelines, including time-out and banning policies, have been established by the moderators of these forums. Click here for “Do I Have HIV?” posting guidelines. Click here for posting guidelines pertaining to all other POZ community forums.

  • We ask all forums members to provide references for health/medical/scientific information they provide, when it is not a personal experience being discussed. Please provide hyperlinks with full URLs or full citations of published works not available via the Internet. Additionally, all forums members must post information which are true and correct to their knowledge.

  • Product advertisement—including links; banners; editorial content; and clinical trial, study or survey participation—is strictly prohibited by forums members unless permission has been secured from POZ.

To change forums navigation language settings, click here (members only), Register now

Para cambiar sus preferencias de los foros en español, haz clic aquí (sólo miembros), Regístrate ahora

Finished Reading This? You can collapse this or any other box on this page by clicking the symbol in each box.

Author Topic: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?  (Read 7874 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline Morton Salt

  • Member
  • Posts: 98
Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« on: July 13, 2007, 12:31:38 pm »
I was diagnosed + Feb of last year.  My wife and i have been married for over 2 years.  Without even knowing i was +, we were always having unprotected sex because we thought it was o.k.  After racking my brain in thought about how, where and when, my best guess is i got hiv about 6-7 years ago.  When i found out i was +, my wife was tested and she was -.  My first labs were 163 CD4 and 400 Vl. Odd #'s i know.  My question is this. Why wasn't she infected after the hundreds of times we had sex?  And now that we want to have a baby, how safe is it to conceive naturally as apposed to sperm washing? Theres gotta be something more to it for her to have not got infected than just pure luck.  Now my CD4 is about the same and my vl is undetectable. I'm on meds and i have never had a sickness of any sort. Just curious if anyone has any insight to this mystery and what a guy in my position can do to have a baby with his wife.

~Morton Salt
"I'm king of the salts"

Offline Andy Velez

  • Global Moderator
  • Member
  • Posts: 34,126
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #1 on: July 13, 2007, 12:48:17 pm »
Morton, here's a site which might give you some helpful information about having a baby. And yes, there has been a lot of progress made in making it possible to have an HIV negative baby when one (or both) of the parents are HIV+. Talk to your HIV doctor and her doctor about planning to have a baby.

http://www.i-base.info/guides/pregnancy/planning.html

As to why your wife hasn't become infected. there are a number of factors including your viral load, some national barrier she might have to transmission, as some lucky few do, and other factors. But that barrier is not something you can always count on so in order to protect her negative status in the future, you should now always be using a condom when you have intercourse.

It's great that she has remained HIV negative and you want to keep it that way.

Keep us posted on how things are evolving about having a baby.

Good luck to you.

Cheers,

Andy Velez

Offline Cerrid

  • Member
  • Posts: 500
  • only as good as your last haircut
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #2 on: July 13, 2007, 01:02:56 pm »
Morton,

according to a recent Spanish study quoted here, it's pretty safe to conceive naturally if your viral load is undetectable:

Quote
The study reviewed the files of 62 mixed-status couples who opted to conceive naturally between 1998 and 2005. The HIV-positive partner was the man in 40 (65%) cases and the woman in 22 (35%) cases. The average viral load, at the time of conception, was less than 500 in both the male and female infected partners. All HIV-positive mothers had undetectable viral loads at the time of delivery.

None of the negative partners in this study got infected this way.

In fact, there is not a single documented case worldwide that someone who is on meds and whose viral load is undetectable has infected his or her partner.


edited link
« Last Edit: July 31, 2013, 01:42:39 pm by iana5252 »
"Boredom is always counterrevolutionary. Always." (Guy Debord)

Offline RapidRod

  • Member
  • Posts: 15,288
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #3 on: July 13, 2007, 03:39:17 pm »
But there was one infected mother who passed HIV to her child. (same study)

There was, however, one case of mother-to-child transmission. Even though HIV treatment was used to reduce the risk of infection, a baby born to a 37-year-old HIV-positive woman was diagnosed with AIDS-related Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) during the third week of life and subsequently died. There were nine miscarriages (which were more common among the HIV-positive women than the HIV-negative women).

The relative risks seems to be low.

Offline Morton Salt

  • Member
  • Posts: 98
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #4 on: July 13, 2007, 08:08:20 pm »
[flash=200,200]http://WOW, This is really helpful information. I cant believe what I'm reading.  I thought conceiving naturally was completely out of the question when u r +. This is definitely going to give my wife and i something to research and discuss about.  Thanks for those links. They were very helpful. 

Any + guys out there who have conceived naturally?  I would love to here about your experiences.

Thanks,
~Morton Salt
"King of Salt"

Offline Queen Tokelove

  • Member
  • Posts: 6,031
  • Smokey the Smurf
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #5 on: July 13, 2007, 08:12:08 pm »
I don't have any links or anything but I thought I would still wish you luck with conceiving. I hope it works out for you....
Started Atripla/Ziagen on 9/13/07.
10/31/07 CD4-265 VL- undetectable
2/6/08 CD4- 401 VL- undetectable
5/7/08 CD4- 705 VL- undetectable
6/4/08 CD4- 775 VL- undetectable
8/6/08 CD4- 805 VL- undetectable
11/13/08 CD4- 774 VL--undetectable
2/4/09  CD4- 484  VL- 18,000 (2 months off meds)
3/3/09---Starting Back on Meds---
4/27/09 CD4- 664 VL-- undetectable
6/17/09 CD4- 438 VL- 439
8/09 CD4- 404 VL- 1,600
01-22-10-- CD4- 525 VL- 59,000
Cherish the simple things life has to offer

Offline carousel

  • Member
  • Posts: 821
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #6 on: July 14, 2007, 04:17:34 am »
I was in a long term relationship with somebody who found out later he was positive.

I wondered if there was something different apart from luck that kept me negative during the whole relationship.  We must have had sex hundreds of times.

And then, of course, I became positive.


Offline Carolann

  • Member
  • Posts: 233
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2007, 12:31:11 pm »
Don't take a chance with having unprotected sex. There are techniques that would be safer than natural conception, even if you are undetectable. Though the chances of passing HIV to a partner are lowered with an undetectable viral load, there is always the possiblity. Do not put your wife or a new baby at risk.

CA

Offline Morton Salt

  • Member
  • Posts: 98
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #8 on: July 16, 2007, 04:26:25 pm »
I was in a long term relationship with somebody who found out later he was positive.

I wondered if there was something different apart from luck that kept me negative during the whole relationship.  We must have had sex hundreds of times.

And then, of course, I became positive.



yeah,  Then there is always that chance eh!.     It does sound appealing when you read about these couples who have had babies and no one got infected, however, i don't think i could live with the consequences if i infected my wife in the process.  My wife and i talk about this allot and we understand all the pros and cons and are very smart people. we want a child, but we don't want anyone hurt in the process.      Ahhhhh, what a tangled web i have woven......

~Morton Salt
"IM KING OF THE SALTS"

Offline newt

  • Member
  • Posts: 3,900
  • the one and original newt
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #9 on: July 16, 2007, 04:45:54 pm »
Viral load is a key factor. Approximately 10% of people with undetectable levels in blood, can have detectable levels in semen, so getting this tested could offer additional safety.

Your partner using 1-2 days of HIV drugs to reduce the slight chance of infection even further. Several studies are looking at whether using tenofovir and FTC (or 3TC) before exposure to HIV can reduce the risk of transmission. But nothing conclusive is reported.

On the study mentioned above, the sample size is too small to be useful. The risk of HIV transmission is already much less than 1 in 60, about the no. of couples in the study.

Other larger, longer studies elsewhere are more useful, and suggestive, but not conclusive, that a man with fully suppressed viral replication is perhaps not infectious to his regular (female) partner (suggestive & perhaps, not conclusive ... I repeat myself).

- matt
"The object is to be a well patient, not a good patient"

Offline zachysmom

  • Member
  • Posts: 112
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #10 on: July 18, 2007, 03:37:59 pm »
Hello King of Salt,
Both my husband and I are positive and concieved a baby naturally. I am happy to report our son who is almost 3 has been delclared virus free. I am living proof it can be done, you to can have a healthy baby virus free.
I would not try to conceive naturally in your case, but talk it over with your doc about the options and maybe a fertility clinic.
Good luck,
keep us posted please,
Nicole
From Russia with love,
Nicole

Offline bear60

  • Member
  • Posts: 4,105
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #11 on: July 18, 2007, 04:05:51 pm »
Why not discuss adoption. If you want a child badly enough it should not matter whether the child is biological.  Others may want to say more about adoption but from my perspective it makes a lot of sense. Save the children!!!!
Poz Bear Type in Philadelphia

Offline Cerrid

  • Member
  • Posts: 500
  • only as good as your last haircut
Re: Why was my wife never infected? Now we want a baby. How?
« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2007, 12:30:34 pm »
These findings presented at the IAS conference 2007 might be useful in your decision how to make babies. Swiss researchers have made considerable progress in these matters.

Quote
July 23, 2007

Timed Intercourse Plus PrEP for Low-Risk Natural Conception
by Tim Horn

HIV-negative women who use pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) immediately prior to engaging in carefully timed sexual intercourse with their antiretroviral-treated HIV-positive male partners may further reduce their already low risk of being exposed to the virus. The encouraging data, reported Monday at the Fourth IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention (IAS 2007) in Sydney, suggest that this may be a safe and effective option for serodiscordant couples hoping to have children by way of natural conception.

According to data sited by Peitro Vernazza, MD, the lead author of the study and a physician at Cantonal Hospital in St. Gallen, Switzerland, approximately half of all HIV-discordant couples express the desire to conceive a child. Some fertility clinics, including a few in the United States, offer “sperm washing” services to couples in which the male partner is HIV positive. However, the processing of semen, along with the required intrauterine insemination (IUI) or in vitro fertilization (IVF), can be prohibitively expensive and is only successful 40 percent to 70 percent of the time.

Dr. Vernazza and his colleagues note that approximately one third of discordant couples who contact fertility clinics for sperm washing and IUI or IFV do not start the procedure—and half go on to conceive naturally.

To explore the feasibility of reducing the risk of HIV transmission among HIV-positive men hoping to have children with their HIV-negative female partners, Dr. Vernazza’s group worked with 22 discordant couples at Cantonal Hospital.

The couples were counseled on methods to maximize the safety of unprotected sexual intercourse to achieve pregnancy. First was the recommendation that the HIV-positive male partner be on an effective antiretroviral regimen and have a viral load below 50 copies for at least three months prior to unprotected intercourse.

Upon entering the program, the male partner’s semen was tested for detectable HIV. Deferring sexual intercourse was recommended if the semen sample was positive for HV-RNA.

The HIV-negative female partner underwent urine-based luteinizing hormone (LH) testing to time ovulation and determine the optimal window for sexual intercourse. On the morning of peak urine LH, a standard 300 mg PrEP dose of Viread (tenofovir) was given, followed by a second dose 24 hours later. The couples were instructed to have sexual intercourse the evening after the second dose of PrEP.

Among the 22 couples followed by Dr. Vernazza’s group, 70 percent became pregnant. Fifty percent of the women became pregnant after up to three episodes of unprotected intercourse. No women became infected with HIV while participating in the program.

Dr. Vernazza concluded that, given the minimum risk of HIV transmission if the male HIV-positive partner is on suppressive antiretroviral therapy, timed unprotected intercourse could be a reasonable alternative to in vitro methods. While the design of this informal study did not allow for an accurate assessment of Viread’s efficacy as PrEP—given its use in combination with other risk-reducing procedures—Dr. Vernazza reckoned that the use of prophylaxis to further reduce the minimal risk was “well accepted.”

These data build upon the encouraging results from other groups exploring the safety and effectiveness of natural conception among serodiscordant couples. 

Source:

Vernazza P, Brenner I, Graf I. Pre-exposure prophylaxis and timed intercourse for HIV-discordant couples willing to conceive a child [Abtract MoPDC01]. Fourth IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, Sydney, 2007.

http://www.poz.com/articles/761_12611.shtml

Here's a link to one of the original publications (full text):
www.aidsonline.com/pt/re/aids/fulltext.00002030-200602280-00025.htm


"Boredom is always counterrevolutionary. Always." (Guy Debord)

Offline SASA39

  • Member
  • Posts: 698
12. Oct`06.  CD4=58 %  VL not issued
25.Dec.`06.         203     VL= 0
..................................................
25.Dec`06.- 19.Oct`16 :
various ups & downs- mostly ups - from 58-916 and back in #CD and few blips in VL.
...................................................
19.Oct`16     CD4=644      VL=0

 


Terms of Membership for these forums
 

© 2024 Smart + Strong. All Rights Reserved.   terms of use and your privacy
Smart + Strong® is a registered trademark of CDM Publishing, LLC.