Prolonged Rupture of Membranes and Transmission of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus

To the Editor: Landesman et al. (June 20 issue) 1 report that the risk of transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) from mother to infant increases rapidly when the amniotic membranes rupture more than four hours before delivery. That this factor plays an important part in HIV infection, as it does in most perinatally acquired infections of newborns, appears to be true, as the authors state. Our reading of their Table 2 leads us to a different conclusion about the four-hour limit, however. When the rupture of membranes occurred less than 1 hour before delivery, the infection rate . . .