PIP: This study examined the effect of HIV infection on pregnancy wastage in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, by comparing women presenting with spontaneous abortion to women presenting for delivery from the same geographical region. Data were collected in 2 stages. In the first stage, 400 pregnant women were matched to 186 women presenting with spontaneous abortion (excluding all women who admitted to or were suspected of having a voluntary abortion) by age, parity, and marital status. Each woman was interviewed for obstetric history during the past 4 years, each was given a physical examination, and each had blood drawn to test for HIV seropositivity. In addition, details about birth weight and gestation at delivery were gleaned from the pregnant mothers upon delivery. For the evaluation of the effect of HIV infection on pregnancy wastage and the prevalence of clinical signs in the infected group, an additional 290 women (51 abortion patients and 239 pregnant controls) were screened in a similar manner. Researchers found that: 1) women presenting with spontaneous abortion had a significantly higher rate of HIV infection (20.7%) than those presenting for antenatal care or delivery (11.9%) (p = 0.05); 2) the infected group had a much higher rate of recent history of fetal wastage (late abortions, neonatal deaths, premature delivery) than the noninfected group (p 0.05); and 3) HIV-infected mothers delivered lower birth weight babies than the noninfected group (p 0.01). The authors point out that these results contradict those from Europe and the US, where no adverse pregnancy outcomes have been found in HIV-infected women. They suggest that future studies account for the immunological state of the women and the physical and other social characteristics which are likely to affect pregnancy outcome.