The Study
Increased risk of serious bacterial infections due to maternal immunosuppression in HIV-exposed uninfected infants in a European country.
This study shows that babies born to mothers with lower immune cell counts during pregnancy were more likely to get serious bacterial infections in their first year. It doesn’t prove the low immune count caused the infections — just that they happened more often together.
Analysis score
Maximum 72 for a cohort study.
Where the score came from
Even if babies don’t have HIV, if their mom had a weak immune system during pregnancy, the baby is more likely to get very bad bacterial infections in the first year.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 552 / 100
Quality score
Groups of people are followed over time to see who develops an outcome. Strong for identifying risk factors and associations, but cannot prove causation as firmly as RCTs.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes, this is important — a 70% higher risk of serious infection is a big deal for babies who are already more vulnerable.
- 293 out of 1000 healthy babies born to HIV+ moms got a serious infection.
- 3Babies whose moms had low CD4 cells (below 350) were 1.7 times more likely to get serious bacterial infections.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America
Year
2014
Authors
C. Taron-Brocard, J. Le chenadec, A. Faye, C. Dollfus, T. Goetghebuer, V. Gajdos, J. Labaune, Anaïs Perilhou, L. Mandelbrot, S. Blanche, J. Warszawski
Related Content
Claims (3)
If a mom with HIV has a weaker immune system during pregnancy, her baby — even if not infected with HIV — might be more likely to get serious bacterial infections in the first year of life, especially from certain types of bacteria.
Babies exposed to HIV but not infected have the same chance of getting serious viral infections in their first year, no matter how weak their mom's immune system was during pregnancy. This suggests mom's immune health might affect bacterial infections but not viral ones in these babies.
About 9 out of every 100 babies born to mothers with HIV—who don’t get infected themselves—still get very sick from infections in their first year, and nearly a quarter of those serious infections are caused by bacteria.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.