Sam Smith explores the ways HIV affects women and child-bearing parents, and the ongoing fight to end gender inequality and stigma within the fight for greater AIDS awareness.

By the late 1990s, new, effective treatments had dramatically changed the implications of a positive HIV diagnosis. But that remarkable news was still taking time to filter through - both to the general public and even to some healthcare professionals - and people with HIV were still regularly subject to misinformation and stigma.

Susan Cole was a mother of two when she received the news she was HIV positive almost by accident - after a routine immigration medical check at the time of her moving to the USA. It was only after spending weeks researching new advances that she realised she could be alive to see her children grow old.

Sam hears the story of how Susan has gone on to live - in her words - a “full and fabulous life”: helping to spread independent, accurate and accessible information about HIV and AIDS. We also find out about how Susan has gone on to have a third child - and from health researcher Bakita Kasadha about the huge advances regarding pregnancy and breastfeeding / chestfeeding for women and other parents with HIV.

Bakita also unravels the specific implications of an HIV-positive diagnosis for women, and the ongoing challenge to end gender inequality within the fight for greater HIV awareness and against stigma.

In “A Positive Life”, singer Sam Smith presents stories of HIV in the UK over the last forty years. They hear from people who remember the earliest years of the AIDS crisis; the grassroots activists and marginalised communities who came together to fight stigma and raise public awareness; and a new generation living with effective treatments for HIV in a radically-changed world.

An Overcoat Media production for BBC Sounds

Producer: Arlie Adlington