Reproductive choice in individuals HIV-1 infected in south eastern Italy

Objective: To evaluate the impact of counseling on reproductive choices in seropositive women in South-Eastern Italy. Setting: University Hospital, Apulia region, South-Eastern Italy, tertiary referral center for high risk obstetrics and infectious diseases. Methods: Between March 1985 and December 1996, two hundred and twenty-five HN-infected women, receiving treatment at our clinic for infectious disease s were enrolled. They were all regularly given treatment and counseling and their sexual partners, if negative, tested for HIV-1 antibodies. Their rep roductive choices and their attitude toward pregnancy were recorded and ana lyzed. Results: Seventy-six pregnancies were observed during this period in 76 wom en. Twenty-one of these women (27.7%) decided to terminate the pregnancy. W omen that were intravenous drug users or with a longer history of known ser opositivity were more likely to have a termination. A decreasing trend in t he request of abortion was observed with time. Conclusions: The data show that the scenario of HIV-infected women is chang ing in our setting. As a consequence, many seropositive women deliberately choose to have a pregnancy and factors different from those we expect to be modified by the counseling influence their reproductive choice. They shoul d be taken into account in the management of these women before and during pregnancy.