Most US women face stroke risk

Pregnant women infected with HIV are more liekly to spread the virus to their children if they are carrying twins,according to a report in the journal AIDS.Laurent Mandelbrot of the University of Paris,and associates investigated mother-to-child spread of HIV in twins,compared with single twins,compared with single infants,born to HIV-infected mothers in the French Perinatal HIV Cohort.Before the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy,an effective combination of anti-HIV drugs,the mother-to-child HIV transmission rate in twin pregnancies was two to three times that in singleton pregnancies.

Extra vitamin supplements can reduce the risk of having an underweight or undersized baby, and all pregnant women in developing countries should take them,researchers said.But the team, reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine ,said the supplements did not lower the likelihood of premature birth or losing the foetus before birth.The study,conducted in Tanzania,involved 8468 pregnant women who received iron and folic acid supplements. Half were given supplements containing vitamins C,E and a mix of B vitamins.The foetal death rate stayed around 5% and the rate of premature delivery was nearly 17% regardless of whether the mothers got the vitamins.

Breast feeding,which helps build a baby's immune system, may be the best option for HIV-infected mothers in developing countries, despite the risk of transmitting the virus that causes AIDS to their babies, according to new studies presented some days ago. HIV-positive mothes generally are counselled to feed their babies formula to limit the risk of transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus, but that has caused problems in nations where clean water and other needs may not be met. Hoosen Coovadia a pediatrician at South Africa's University of KwaZuluNatal said that instructing HIV-infected mothers in developing nations to breast-feed would result in about 300000 children becoming infected with HIV, but would save 1.5 million from dying of other diseases.