Transmission of HIV from Mother to Child

It is assumed by most people that all children born to HIV positive mothers will be HIV positive as well. The actuality is that only about 33% of babies born to HIV positive mothers who have no prenatal care and no antiviral therapy will be born HIV positive. At the recent International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, it was reported that less than 1% of babies born to mothers who had good prenatal care and who were on an antiviral regimen were born HIV positive. The only ones that were born positive had been born under high risk conditions where there was trauma to mother and/or child during birth. All babies born under normal circumstances to mothers under a physician's care and on antiviral therapy were born HIV negative.