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Effects of HIV on pregnancy

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

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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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