Article did not highlight current guidelines

EDITOR—In the section on women with HIV infection in their article for the ABC of labour care, Chamberlain and Steer make several controversial and unreferenced statements.1 The key message recognises the importance of screening pregnant women for HIV infection to enable appropriate care to protect the baby; it makes no mention, however, of maternal health, preferring to highlight staff protection. In obstetrics and midwifery it would be preferable to emphasise the need to practise universal precautions to protect against any transmissible infections rather than selective practice, which puts staff and patients at risk and may stigmatise women with HIV or other infections.

The authors state that “women known to be HIV positive should be taking zidovudine and protease inhibitors during the second half of pregnancy.” The British HIV Association has written guidelines on prescribing for HIV infection in pregnancy and recommends triple antiretroviral therapy (usually zidovudine, another nucleoside analogue, and either a protease inhibitor …