A new RHM supplement explores pregnancy decisions of women living with HIV. It’s free to download here.

In 2007 we published this supplement on Ensuring Sexual and Reproductive Health for People Living with HIV. It will be interesting to ring the changes. With the advent of antiretroviral therapy and with continued channelling of resources into HIV services, greater numbers of HIV-positive women are living longer, healthier lives. As a result, they are contending with a range of issues affecting their sexual and reproductive health and rights. The new supplement aims to determine ways to work across disciplines and life experiences with the ultimate goal of ensuring that women living with HIV are at the centre of decision-making about their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

The supplement responds to an identified need for a stronger evidence base; drawing from biomedical, economic, political, legal and social science perspectives alike. It also recognises the importance of moving beyond disciplinary silos to bring these perspectives together in order to provide more comprehensive information relevant to the lives of women and men living with HIV, as well as to create demand for appropriate services and policies.

The supplement grew out of a conference on HIV and pregnancy at the Harvard School of Public Health in March 2010, where it was noted that despite recent attention to the sexual and reproductive health concerns of HIV-positive women in some specific areas, the challenge remains to ensure the voices of HIV-positive women are heard and to address relevant issues from multidisciplinary perspectives.

We have included papers here that represent a diversity of topics, experiences, geographical areas and disciplines. Taken together these papers are intended to help drive policy, programmatic, research and advocacy efforts to promote and protect the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women living with HIV.

Titles include:

• The pregnancy decisions of HIV-positive women: the state of knowledge and way forward

• Exploring the relationship between induced abortion and HIV infection in Brazil

• The impact of antenatal HIV diagnosis on postpartum childbearing desires in northern Tanzania: a mixed methods study

• HIV, unwanted pregnancy and abortion – where is the human rights approach?

• How the global call for elimination of paediatric HIV can support HIV-positive women to achieve their pregnancy intentions

• If, when and how to tell: a qualitative study of HIV disclosure among young women in Zimbabwe

• Towards an HIV-free generation: getting to zero or getting to rights?

• A conceptual framework for understanding HIV risk behaviour in the context of supporting fertility goals among HIV-serodiscordant couples

• The pregnancy decisions of HIV-positive women: the state of knowledge and way forward

• The role of men as partners and fathers in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and in the promotion of sexual and reproductive health

• “Shemade up a choice for me”: 22 HIV-positive women’s experiences of involuntary sterilization in two South African provinces

• Hormonal contraception and risk of HIV acquisition: a difficult policy position in spite of incomplete evidence

• Positive and pregnant – how dare you: a study on access to reproductive and maternal health care for women living with HIV in Asia

The supplement editor is Sofia Gruskin, Program on Global Health and Human Rights, USC Institute for Global Health.

Download the new supplement here