Pregnant women are advised to get HIV tested, here’s why

HIV detection for pregnant women to reduce the risk of passing the virus to the baby.

REPUBLIC.CO.ID, JAKARTA — Children’s Hospital and Our Lady of Hope pediatrician dr. Dwinanda Aidina, Sp.A(K), recommends that pregnant women be tested for HIV transmission. This is to reduce the risk of passing the virus to the baby during pregnancy and after delivery.

“His mother needs to be screened. It’s even better if she is screened before marriage. Or during the second or third trimester, she will be tested for HIV and other diseases,” Dwinanda said on the Ministry’s virtual radio talk show of Health, who was in the presence of the Ministry of Health from Jakarta on Friday (3/12/2022).

If HIV transmission to the mother can be detected earlier, she said, doctors can prepare antiretroviral (ARV) therapy to suppress the development of the virus and prevent mothers from passing the virus to their babies. She added, doctors may also monitor the mother’s condition regularly for side effects from the use of ARV drugs, although in general ARVs are safe to give to pregnant women.

She said pregnant HIV-infected women are usually advised to have routine checkups about two weeks to once a month if they experience side effects from drug use or other problems.

“We also need to look at drug evaluations to see if this antiviral is effective against HIV, and we will also evaluate the medication adherence of pregnant women,” she said, adding that adherence to taking ARVs is important to avoid the risk of virus resistance to drugs.

Dwinanda explained that ARV treatment is meant to suppress HIV replication until the virus is undetectable or detected at very low levels in the blood. “If the level is very low, it’s actually very, very low that it will infect your partner and it’s very, very low that it will infect your baby,” she said.

She argued that mothers with HIV can plan to have children as long as compliance requirements for taking ARVs are met and the HIV virus is undetectable in their blood. “However, once she gives birth to her child, her child will also receive preventative medicines so she doesn’t get the virus,” Dwinanda said.

She also explained that midwives and internal medicine physicians will work together and provide various advice on labor and postpartum preparation to HIV-infected mothers, including delivery planning and breastfeeding planning or complementary breastfeeding. and routine blood tests.

Dwinanda recalled that the government has implemented an HIV prevention program which includes the provision of HIV testing services for pregnant women in health care settings such as health centers and hospitals.

source: Between