[Antiretroviral therapy in pregnant women with HIV]

Abstract

Antiretroviral therapy decreases rates of maternal-infant HIV transmission when given ante and intrapartum to the pregnant women and post partum to the infant. The use of zidovudine (AZT) in pregnant women and newborn is well tolerated and reduces the maternal-infant transmission of HIV even though the complete protocol has not been used. Combination therapy leads to a sustained undetectable viral load in mother blood and does not have detrimental effects on the newborn. The use of combination antiretroviral therapy is now recommended in pregnancy, although limited data currently exists on the impact of this regimen on newborns. In future, there is a clear need to assemble larger population-based cohorts of HIV+ parturients and their offspring to explore the safety of antiviral therapy in pregnancy.