i am 37 weeks pregnant and want to know the tested and known treatments for babies just born from and hiv + mother is it standard to give azt drugs to a newborn positive or negitive?,or is the bactrum treatment just as effective????what is the most studied so we are not statistics for some records there keeping, i want to know what to expect them to do, confused about the baby if negative why would they give him poison???

Without antiviral therapy, about 25-40% of HIV positive women will pass the virus on to their babies. Antiviral therapy markedly reduces the risk of transmission. Administration of AZT to mom during delivery and baby after birth is the minimum recommended therapy in most settings. Further recommendations depend on specific maternal factors (viral load, CD4 count, etc). and available medications. Avalailable data indicate that aside from the short term, reversible side effect of anemia, that AZT is safe. Long-term follow-up of babies exposed to AZT are now in progress.

Bactrim does not prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV; it merely protects the baby from infections that commonly occur in young HIV positive babies. Because many of these infections can occur at a few months of age, Bactrim therapy is routinely recommended in areas in which early diagnosis may not be available until the baby's infection status is determined. In settings in which babies are not breastfed and in which their HIV status can be diagnosed definitively by 2 months of age, many practitioners do not routinely use Bactrim. Please discuss this with your care provider to determine what is the optimal course of therapy for your baby.