An HIV positive man but healthy wife. Can they have a healthy child so that there is not risk to the mother?

Is it possible to have a child from the HIV positive husband and healthy wife?

Yes, it is.

There is a procedure known as sperm washing where an HIV+ persons sperm is washed. HIV does not live inside the sperm itself, it lives in the fluid (semen) that surrounds the sperm. In Canada, this procedure usually runs you about 200-400$ Cdn.
Once the sperm is washed there are four techniques that can be used in conjunction with washed sperm:
-intrauterine insemination (IUI)
-in-vitro fertilization (IVF)
-intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI)
-cervical cup insemination
(some of these techniques are not available everywhere)

At the July 2002 World AIDS Conference, Dr. Valeria Savasi of the U. of Milan reported that 1500 serodiscordant couples (+/-) had undergone 4000 cycles of intrauterine insemination (IUI) with washed sperm in their clinics. There have been no cases of HIV transmission to either women or children and the pregnancy rate is about 8% per natural cycle and about 18% per stimulated cycle.

Hope this helps.

not likely
can you get a hiv pos female to carry the child?

It is possible, but they should talk to a medical professional to give them advice. It may need to be IVF.

Hi there,

THE DOC IS IN: Can An HIV-Positive Man Father Children?
Posted May 8th 2007 1:56PM by Angela Bronner
Filed under: AIDS: 25 Years and Counting

At '25 Years and Counting' our lively discussion forum (i.e., the comments section) provides plenty of good insight, information and sometimes, questions around HIV and AIDS.

Some questions I try to answer, but some need to be deferred to a medical professional.

Dr. Rani G. Whitfield, MD, also known as Tha Hip Hop Doc (H2D), has a general practice in Baton Rouge, LA and also works in high schools and in prisons. He has appeared on BET's '106th and Park' dispensing medical advice and has a chapter in the book, 'Not In My Family' -- a collection of essays on AIDS in the African-American community.

Our question this time comes from Darnell, who posted on HIV and Pregnancy (#52):

"Negative children born to positive mothers is definitely a gift from God. I'm young a professional black male, diagnosed with HIV three years ago. My hopes for fathering a child have been shattered, is there anything out there for HIV+ men who want to become biological fathers?"

H2D Responds:

Several studies have been done on relationships where one partner is positive and the other is negative. This is called mixed status or HIV discordant couples. Even if the HIV (+) partner has a healthy immune or defense system (low viral load and good CD4 count), the possibility of infecting the HIV (-) person is still very real.

A baby can only be HIV positive if his/her mother is HIV positive. Medicines, such as AZT, can be used during child birth to prevent the virus from spreading to the baby. However, mixed status couples that continue to have unprotected sex in an attempt to "get pregnant" run the risk of infecting both mom AND baby.

Unfortunately, at this time, there are not many options. I strongly recommend condom use (male and/or female) during sex between mixed status couples. Great question. Lets stay Hip-Hop Healthy!

Continue to submit your questions via your comments in the blog.

For more on Dr. Rani G. Whitfield, M.D., please visit his Web site: www.h2doc.com

Hope this helps.

Cheers.


B.J. C: Thanks for the info on sperm washing. I totally forgot about that procedure but then being a gay man, parenting and child rearing is not something I'm interested in! :O)

no because as soon as u try for a child the mother will get hiv then the baby will come out sick or unless she takes pills so the baby will not get hiv but will have other bad symptoms like retardation and deformation

Not likely.

Are you willing to endanger the life of your wife to find out?