Infants with HIV

In the United States, mother-to-child HIV transmission has been drastically reduced, from a high of 2,500 perinatal HIV infections in 1992 to an estimated 300 to 400 annual infections in recent years.⁽¹⁾  The reductions have occurred because many HIV positive mothers now receive zidovudine therapy or other appropriate medical treatment before and during birth and because HIV-positive mothers have stopped breastfeeding their infants.⁽²⁾

More than three quarters of the babies born infected with HIV in the United States are African American or Latino.⁽³⁾  Most new HIV infections among infants are occurring among infants of color because it is among women of color where HIV/AIDS cases are concentrated.  Once a women is infected with HIV, we can only try to protect her baby.  However, it is far better to do everything we can to create a situation in which the mother stays from of HIV, so that she will be able to live and raise her child until he or she is grown.

Footnotes

(1) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2001. HIV Prevention Strategic Plan Through 2005. January. page 7.  In pdf format.

(2) In the absence of any medical treatment, about 75 out of 100 infants of HIV-infected mothers are born free of HIV.  Given appropriate medical treatment during pregnancy and birth, an infant's chance of being born free of HIV disease now rises to as high as 98 in 100.  Howard Minkoff and Nanette Santoro. 2000. "Ethical Considerations in the Treatment of Infertility in Women with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection," New England Journal of Medicine, June 8. vol. 342, no. 23, pages 1748-1750.  

(3) CDC, HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, Cases Reported Through December 1999, vol. 11, no. 2, table 16.

For a list of other materials used on this website, see References.