Infant Mortality and Maternal Vitamin A Deficiency During Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection
- 1 October 1995
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in Clinical Infectious Diseases
- Vol. 21 (4) , 966-972
- https://doi.org/10.1093/clinids/21.4.966
Abstract
The maternal factors that contribute to high mortality among infants born to women infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are unclear. We followed 474 HIV-infected mothers and their infants in Malawi from pregnancy through the infants' 12th month of life. Of the 474 HIV-infected pregnant women, 300 (63.3%) were deficient in vitamin A (serum level of vitamin A, P < .0001). The overall infant mortality rate was 28.7%. We divided HIV-positive mothers into six groups according to serum vitamin A levels (µmol/L) as follows: group 1, 1.75. Infant mortality rates for each group were 93.3%, 41.6%, 23.4%, 18.5%, 17.7%, and 14.2%, respectively (P < .0001). Maternal vitamin A deficiency during HIV infection may contribute to increased infant mortality.Keywords
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