Pregnancy and breastfeeding while on Tenofovir (Viread)

enolia

Hi everyone,

I would like to share my Tenofovir experience with the HBV community.

I am an HBV (Hbe Neg) carrier and have been on Tenofovir (Viread) since December 2009. Dr evaluated me and said that I had to start treatment even though viral load wasn't very high 59000UI/ml, AST and ALT in normal range according to old standards (ALT = 32 was the maximum I reached) and Liver Biopsy came back with stage 1. The new recommendations were to start treating at a low viral load.

When I first started, I was panicked because some references tell you not to get pregnant while on Viread because the drung might possibly harm baby's bones and some other stuff...Dr said it was ok to get pregnant and that Viread is a Category B drug which is safe during pregnancy. It has also been safely used by many HIV women since years.

I gave birth to my baby boy on December 16 2010 and and baby is doing just fine. If some of you ladies are on Tnf treatment, it is ok to get pregnant when you take Tenofovir. By the way, I never missed a pill since I started the treatment and during all my pregnancy. Tnf made the viral load undetectable starting from month 3 so the theory is baby has very low chances to get HBV. I am crossing my fingers!

After baby's birth, he has been given the HBV vaccine and immunoglobulin in the first 12 hours of his life and he will get the next vaccine shots for HBV at 1 month and 6 months of life. We will do a blood test at 7 month to make sure he didn't get the HBV virus during pregnancy or labor and delivery!! It is well know that ALT gets higher during pregnancy, mine went up from 21 to 32 during pregnancy, nothing crazy though...I will watch this starting from January to follow up on my ALT values. I didn't have any common problem during pregnany (high pressure, gestational diabetes...) thanks God.

As far as breastfeeding, opinions are contradictory...A first doctor said better avoid breastfeeding as there are not enough stdies on humans showing if tnf goes into the maternal milk and if can harm the baby. Another doctor said it is probably safe, the main concern was tnf not HBV as the virus doesn't go into maternal milk. The only study was done on maccaques and the study mentions that only 2% of tnf goes to breast milk and does not harm the baby. I also heard from other medhelp mothers that they have been told by their doctor that breastfeeding was safe while on Viread, I raised the issue during my delivery stay at the hospital and the consensus was, we will check baby's levels of creatinine and phosphate at birth and after 1 month of breastfeeding, if the values are stable, I can continue breastfeeding, if they get lower, they there might be some effect of baby's kidneys and I will have to add formula when feeding my baby. I am already using both methods breastfeeding and formula to lower the impacts if there are any. The argument is that tnf remains in our blood for 17 hours and that is a very long period.
I will update whenever I get results for my baby's kidneys tests and HBV test at 7 months of life.

I hope this post benefits other HBV moms on Tenofovir treatment and who are trying to concieve. Good luck!

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