Morbidity in the first year postpartum among HIV-infected women in Kenya

To assess the effects of HIV infection on morbidity and the needs of infected women for services in the first year postpartum.

A cross-sectional study with 500 women attending a child-health clinic in Mombasa, Kenya.

Postpartum duration was a median of 3.3 months (interquartile range, 1.9-6.1 months). The 54 HIV-infected women had a lower income and less financial support than the uninfected women, and they were more likely to experience fever, dyspnea, and dysuria, and to have genital warts (odds ratio [OR], 9.6; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.6-35.6; P<0.001), candidiasis (OR, 2.9; 95% CI, 1.2-6.8; P=0.012), and bacterial vaginosis (OR, 1.8; 95% CI, 0.95-3.3; P=0.066). Six (nearly 15%) of the HIV-infected women had low- or high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions, and 21 (42%) had an unmet need for contraception. More than half of all women were anemic, and normocytic anemia was predominant among the HIV infected.

Compared with uninfected women, morbidity was increased for HIV-infected women during the year following delivery. This period could be used to offer these, and all-women, family planning services, cervical cancer screening, and treatment for anemia and reproductive tract infections.