Can a person with HIV get babies?

Ok, this is totally unrelated to skin, but guess I can put this under health. This morning as I was going out with my family to our favourite Bak Kut Teh place for breakfast, I received a call from my university friend who is an opthalmologist asking about this:"If a person with HIV on HAART (medicines for HIV) is getting married, can he gets babies?"

Obviously the best person to discuss his family plan would be his infectious disease physician with whom he is following up. I might not be up to date but I did a little search on BHIVA & CDC before getting the answer as follows.

If the male partner is HIV positive:

• Wait till the viral load is less than 50 for at least 6 months
• Make sure there are no other infections
• Unprotected sexual intercourse only at the fertile time of the woman's cycle
• Consider assisted conception with sperm washing or donor sperm if your risk of tramitting HIV is high (ask your ID physician) 
• Consider pre-exposure prophylaxis treatment (ask your ID physician)

If the female partner is HIV positive:

• Wait till the viral load is less than 50
• Make sure there are no other infections
• Take folic acid at least 3 months before planning for pregnancy, in particular if you are on antibiotics such as bactrim (co-trimoxazole)
• Both natural delivery and Caesarean section are possible options if your viral load is less than 50
• Intravenous infusion of HIV medicine may be given if your waters have broken or if your viral load is high

The baby will be given HIV medicine for at least 4 weeks and tested for HIV. Breastfeeding is not encouraged especially if in countries where formula milk is easily accessible.

Good to know: 
Take the HIV medications diligently, don't ever miss a dose, if the viral load is low, the risk of transmitting HIV from male partner to female partner is almost zero, and the risk of transmitting HIV from mother to newborn is less than 1%. :)