Identifying socioeconomic characteristics of pregnant women aged 15–50 years diagnosed with HIV during pregnancy, the Netherlands, 2016 to 2023

BACKGROUNDPregnant women in the Netherlands are screened for HIV during the first trimester. Insight into characteristics of women diagnosed with HIV may help identify groups who could benefit from testing strategies.AIMWe assessed the contribution of HIV diagnoses during pregnancy to the total number of diagnoses among women in the Netherlands between 2016 and 2023 and identified socioeconomic characteristics of women with an antenatal diagnosis.METHODSIn a cross-sectional analysis, we selected women aged 15-50 years registered in the national ATHENA cohort and diagnosed with HIV in the Netherlands. Each pregnant woman with HIV was matched by year of pregnancy to three pregnant women without HIV from the general population using non-public registry data from Statistics Netherlands. Characteristics were examined using multivariable logistic regression.RESULTSNinety-two of 523 women with HIV were diagnosed during pregnancy. These women less often had an advanced HIV infection than non-pregnant women with HIV (22 vs. 47%). Eighty-three of 92 pregnant women with HIV were matched with 249 pregnant women without HIV. Being diagnosed during pregnancy was associated with first- (aOR: 14.1; 95% CI: 6.45-30.6) or second-generation migration background (aOR: 5.38; 95% CI:2.02-11.0), income below the poverty line (aOR: 3.46; 95% CI: 1.28-9.34) and living in a single-parent household (aOR: 3.46; 95% CI: 1.52-7.88).CONCLUSIONAntenatal HIV diagnoses accounted for a substantial part of diagnoses among women; pregnant women were less likely to present with advanced-stage disease. These findings show the importance of universal antenatal HIV screening.