Childbirth events may influence infant HIV transmission.

Events at childbirth may be associated with maternal-infant HIV transmissio n, according to a report from New York's Columbia University.

Knowledge of the timing of maternal-infant HIV transmission, whether in ute ro or at the time of labor and delivery, is critical to both an understanding of the mechanis ms of transmission and the development of interventions aimed at preventing infection.

"Virus has been isolated from fetuses electively aborted early in gestation , supporting the inference that at least some transmission takes place in the early intrauterine phase," researcher Louise Kuhn and colleagues wrote in the July 1994 issue of American …