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  • Title: Protecting the unborn -- reducing mother-to-child transmission.
    Author: Tapper A.
    Journal: AIDS Anal Afr; 1998 Feb; 8(1):10-1. PubMed ID: 12293285.
    Abstract:
    HIV is transmitted to a child during pregnancy, at birth, or through the mother's milk during infancy. Since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, 3.8 million children are estimated to have become infected with HIV and 2.7 million have died. More than 9% acquired HIV through their HIV-positive mothers and in 1997, 1600 children were infected daily. Since many women in developing countries do not have access to clean water, it is unsafe for them to bottle feed. As such, HIV-infected women in such settings have been encouraged to breast feed their infants despite the risk of perinatal HIV transmission. The most recent research, however, indicates that 10-25% of fetal/infant HIV infections occur intrauterine, 60-75% during delivery, and 20-40% postpartum. It is estimated that breast feeding increases the risk of infection by 5-40%. These findings have led the principal administrator of the European Union's HIV/AIDS program and other health experts to recommend that children be weaned from breast feeding at 4-6 months, a change from existing breast feeding guidelines. As several trials end in the near future, important results are expected in 1998 on how to prevent perinatal HIV transmission. The ethics of involving pregnant women in Africa and Asia in clinical trials to reduce perinatal HIV transmission and vitamin A supplements and vaginal lavages are discussed.
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