HIV+ women's perception of child conception in relation to prevention and vertical transmission of HIV Mbandaka, Equateur, Democratic Republic of Congo

Despite the efforts made in the fight against HIV, specifically mother-to-child transmission, the latter still persists. Our study aims to understand how HIV-positive women perceive the conception of children in relation to the prevention and vertical transmission of HIV, by contributing to the reduction of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the context of our environment. This is a prospective qualitative study. The phenomenological approach made it easier for us to understand the facts about ‘HIV+ women's perceptions of child conception in relation to the prevention and vertical transmission of HIV’. It envisages describing the experience as perceived by the participants. We also used LIKERT's two-level attitude scale; mainly agreement and disagreement; respectively in relation to desire and non-desire about motherhood. The results obtained in our study showed that many of the participants take ARVs regularly in order to protect themselves and give birth to healthy children. They took these drugs before pregnancy and/or others took them during ANC after screening. In addition, the majority of participants wanted to conceive regardless of their condition. HIV-positive women have varying perceptions of conception, influenced by social, cultural and medical factors. Some fear the transmission of HIV to their child or partner, while others aspire to normal motherhood despite their HIV-positive status. Generally speaking, the majority of the women surveyed choose to conceive regardless of their condition. For this reason, effective treatment should be considered with a view to reducing the viral load to undetectable levels, thereby reducing the risk of transmission of the virus and preventing the complications associated with infection.