HIV-positive women carrying the virus can infect their unborn baby. The number of women attending ante-natal clinics who are so infected is not known since many refuse to be tested. Sketchy evidence suggests it may be 0.3 per cent in London. If the pregnant woman is well, pregnancy does not seem to hurry progress towards AIDS but if she has symptoms these are likely to be worsened. As far as the baby is concerned it looks as if a quarter to a half will catch the infection from the mother but whether this occurs whilst in the womb, at delivery, or through breastfeeding is not known though the first route is thought to be most likely and the last very unlikely. Women who show signs of not being well due to infection with HIV are thought to be particularly likely to infect the foetus and they are usually offered a termination of the pregnancy. Current government advice in the UK, which is contested by some, is that
HIV-positive mothers should not breastfeed for fear that if the child has not already been infected it may become so via the milk. However in third world countries it may be much safer for the baby of an HIV-positive mother to be breastfed.
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