Infant Growth After In Utero Exposure to Zidovudine

To the Editor: While Ms Culname and colleagues¹ report that children born to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)–infected women and exposed to zidovudine in utero have no difference in growth accretion compared with unexposed counterparts, it is not known whether these children grow less than infants born to healthy seronegative mothers.²

Thirty-two full-term uninfected infants (17 male, 15 female) consecutively born to HIV-infected women in our maternity ward from 1995 through 1997 were categorized as treated (20 infants whose mothers received oral zidovudine from the 14th week of gestation and intravenous zidovudine during delivery) or untreated (12 infants whose mothers did not receive any treatment). Mothers decided whether to receive prophylactic treatment after being informed about the study results of the Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Group Protocol 076 Study Group.³ No infant was treated with zidovudine at birth. Diagnosis and staging of HIV infection were in accordance with the 1994 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention classification.⁴ A control group included 65 healthy full-term infants (35 male, 30 female) who received standard infant formula from birth by maternal choice, sampled from 1570 livebirths in our maternity ward during 1 year. All 3 groups were given a standard infant formula in the first 4 months and solid foods from the fifth month on. Aims of the present study were 1) to compare the growth progress in the 2 HIV-uninfected groups during the first year of life and 2) to compare them with controls at birth and medium-term (18 months).