Research: Smoking “dramatically” increases the risk of pregnancy loss in women with HIV

According to US investigators report published in the online edition of AIDS, smoking dramatically increases the risk of pregnancy loss such as miscarriage or stillbirth in women with HIV. The impact of smoking on pregnancy loss was examined over a 20 years period and it differed dramatically by HIV status, increasing the absolute risk by 19% in HIV-positive women compared to 10% in HIV-positive women.

It is estimated that around 35% of HIV-positive women in the US smoke. Smoking and HIV cause inflammation and activation of the immune system. Both of these processes are highly associated with poor pregnancy prognosis.

“We found strong evidence that current smoking at the visit prior to pregnancy increased risk of pregnancy loss in both HIV-positive and HIV-negative women, we also found that the effect of smoking was substantially stronger among HIV-positive women, a finding robust in sensitivity analysis”, researchers stated.