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"This work shows strongly for the first time that what we call placental micro transfusions during birth are responsible for a large part of the transmission of HIV from mother to baby. To our knowledge, there have never been any data like this before," principal investigator Dr Steven Meshnick, professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health, said in a prepared statement.

Transmitted during contractions
He and his colleague studied 149 pregnant HIV-infected women in Malawi. By analysing umbilical cord blood samples, the researchers concluded that HIV transmission between women and their babies occur during labour contractions and not when the baby passes through the birth canal.

"It has been known for a long time that HIV-infected women who undergo Caesarean section before they go into labour do not transmit the virus, whereas those women who undergo emergency C-sections after they go into labour, do transmit it. What we saw was consistent with this. It looks like direct mother-to-child blood mixing occurring during labour leads to infection," Meshnick said.

These findings suggest that methods such as sanitising the birth canal just before birth may not be effective. It may be better to have HIV-infected pregnant women take antiretroviral drugs before they go into labour, he said.

The study was published on November 21 in the journal PLoS Medicine. – (HealthDayNews)

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November 2005
 

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