You can protect yourself from HIV by:
- Testing to find out your HIV status.
- Going for an HIV test with your sexual partner so that you can learn each other’s status.
- Using condoms if one or both of you have HIV, or if you do not know your partner’s status.
- Using condoms if you are both HIV positive so that you can protect yourselves from re-infection.
Take this quiz:
The quiz below will help you to test your knowledge on how you can protect yourself from HIV. Sometimes we think we know, but later find out that some methods that we rely on do not work:
Think about it:
- Safer sex means using a condom every time you have sex – You must also use each condom just once. Condoms were not made to be used more than once and can break.
- Safer sex means sex without penetration - This means that the penis does not enter the vagina or anus.
- Safer sex means having sex with only one partner in your lifetime – Your partner must also be faithful to you.
Did you know that having more than one sexual partner increases your chances of getting HIV?
Protecting your child from HIV:
If you are HIV positive, there are things that you can do to lower the chance of passing HIV to your baby. You can:
- Take medicine that lowers the chance of passing HIV to your baby during labour – This medicine is called nevirapine. Your baby must also be given a small amount of nevirapine within three days of his/her birth. Babies take it as a syrup so it it easy for them to swallow.
- Have a Caesarean birth – There is a bigger chance that the HIV virus will pass from you to your child in a natural childbirth than in a Caserean birth. Talk to your health worker about your childbirth choices.
You can also pass HIV to your child through breast milk if you are HIV positive. Your child has a higher chance of getting HIV from you if:
- You are infected or re-infected with HIV during breastfeeding
- You give your child breastmilk and other foods.
Click on the signpost to learn more about HIV, how it is spread, how you can protect yourself and live a happy, healthy life.
This is how it works:
If you give your baby breast milk and other foods, he/she can get an upset stomach. This increases the baby’s risk of getting HIV from the milk that passes through his/her upset stomach.
If you choose to breastfeed your baby, it is recommended that you give him/her breast milk only for 6 months with no other foods included. Only thereafter can you add solids to your baby’s diet.
