Pregnancy and progression to AIDS: results of the French prospective cohorts. SEROGEST and SEROCO Study Groups.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether pregnancy accelerates HIV-1 disease progression.

METHOD: In two large French SEROCO and SEROGEST prospective cohorts of HIV infected patients, the progression to AIDS in 365 women with a known date of HIV-1 seroconversion was examined by comparing those who delivered after HIV infection (n = 241) with those who did not become pregnant while HIV-infected (n = 124).

RESULTS: The crude relative risk of developing AIDS associated with pregnancy was 0.7 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.4-1.2]. Adjustment for age at seroconversion, the CD4+ cell percentage at entry, and the method used to date seroconversion did not modify the results (adjusted relative risk, 0.7; 95% CI 0.4-1.2).

CONCLUSIONS: No deleterious effect of pregnancy on progression from seroconversion to AIDS was found. This result has important implications for the counselling of HIV-infected women of child-bearing age.