HIV Mother-to-Child Transmission, Mode of Delivery, and Duration of Rupture of Membranes: Experience in the Current Era

Objective. To evaluate whether the length of time of rupture of membranes (ROM) in optimally managed HIV-positive women on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) with low viral loads (VL) is predictive of the risk of mother to child transmission (MTCT) of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Study Methods. A retrospective case series of all HIV-positive women who delivered at two academic tertiary centers in Toronto, Canada from January 2000 to November 2010 was completed. Results. Two hundred and ten HIV-positive women with viral loads <1,000 copies/ml delivered during the study period. VL was undetectable (<50 copies/mL) for the majority of the women (167, 80%), and <1,000 copies/mL for all women. Mode of delivery was vaginal in 107 (51%) and cesarean in 103 (49%). The median length of time of ROM was 0.63 hours (range 0 to 77.87 hours) for the entire group and 2.56 hours (range 0 to 53.90 hours) for those who had a vaginal birth. Among women with undetectable VL, 90 (54%) had a vaginal birth and 77 (46%) had a cesarean birth. Among the women in this cohort there were no cases of MTCT of HIV. Conclusions. There was no association between duration of ROM or mode of delivery and MTCT in this cohort of 210 virally suppressed HIV-positive pregnant women.