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A study by Professor Mabel L. Rise
of the University of Kansas and researchers from other universities and the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) indicated that children exposed to HIV in
the womb and whose mothers received treatment for HIV during pregnancy did not
exhibit language delays by age 2 years compared with other HIV-exposed children
whose mothers did not receive treatment during pregnancy.
The researchers studied the language
skills of approximately 800 children who were part of the Pediatric HIV/AIDS
Cohort Study (PHACS), a national collaboration between different NIH institutes
and universities. PHACS began in 2005 to examine pediatric HIV issues
concerning long-term safety of fetal and infant exposure to antiretroviral
therapy (ART) and the effects of HIV infection in the womb on adolescents.
Pregnant women with HIV received
treatment to reduce the opportunity of passing HIV infection to the fetus.
Previous studies indicated that ART used to treat the pregnant mother might
cause language delays in infants and toddlers even if the child was not
infected with HIV. Findings of this study indicated that a specific drug,
atazanavir, sometimes used in combination ART treatment should be monitored.
Children whose mothers received combination therapy, including the drug
atazanavir, were more likely to have language delay at 1 year than other
children whose mothers did not receive that drug, but they were on par with
their peers by age 2.
The full report, “Evaluation of Risk
for Late Language Emergence After In Utero Antiretroviral Drug Exposure in
HIV-Exposed Uninfected Infants,” was published online in the Pediatric Infectious
Disease Journal (2013; doi: 10.1097/INF.0b013e31829b80ee).
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus.
To learn more about The Friends of
AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
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