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Effects of HIV on pregnancy

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

effects of HIV infection on pregnancy

HIV infection has little effect on pregnancy outcome or complications in the developed world. However, adverse pregnancy outcomes have been reported more commonly in a number of African studies including complications of both early and late pregnancy

  • spontaneous abortion - HIV seropositive women were 1.47 times more likely to have had a previous spontaneous abortion, and this rose to 1.81 in women in Uganda who were seropositive for both HIV and syphilis

  • ectopic pregnancy

  • infections
    • genital tract infections
      • e.g. - Neisseria gonorrhoea, Chlamydia trachomatis, Candida albicans, Trichomonas vaginalis
      • syphilis - more common in HIV-positive women in African studies. Concurrent infection with syphilis was shown in 33% of HIV-positive pregnant women in South Africa: three times higher than the rate in HIV seronegative women
    • bacterial pneumonia, urinary tract infections and other infections
    • opportunistic infections seen in HIV infection e.g. - tuberculosis, Herpes zoster

  • preterm labour - rates as high as double those rates seen in uninfected women in some reports

  • preterm rupture of membranes

  • low birth weight - has been reported in some studies in developing countries
    • in a Nairobi study, HIV-positive women showed a threefold increase in the risk of delivering a low birth weight baby. This risk was higher with symptomatic HIV infection

  • increased stillbirth rates

Reference:

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