In a latest study, researchers have discovered that a drug used to avoid HIV transmission from mother to child could have small but notable effects on infant development.

Harvard University researchers have found in a study of HIV-positive expectant women that one of many drugs provided to them may affect their child’s development. The impact of drug was noticed on all the kids born, with or without HIV-infection.

The drug named atazanavir is used along with one or more other drugs as part of anti-retroviral regimens used not just for the treatment of HIV patients, but also to reduce the risk of transmission of the disease.

A past study at Harvard suggested that the drug could have some developmental effects, but at that time, researchers said that the risk was low and didn’t suggest alterations in patient's treatment plans.

To conduct the new study that appeared in the journal AIDS, the researchers selected 167 women who received atazanavir at the time of their pregnancy, and 750 who didn’t. The researchers compared the effects of the drug on the basis of developmental baselines when their children turned one year old.

For the children whose mothers received the drug during anti-retroviral treatment, language and social-emotional development scores were less in comparison to children exposed to the drug when they were in womb than the ones who weren’t.

Lower language development scores were discovered, no matter in which trimester they were exposed to the drug, though social-emotional scores were just affected in the ones whose mothers began taking drug in the second or third trimester.

In the case of cognitive, motor and adaptive behavioral development, children whose mothers got the drug all left behind the ones who didn’t have the exposure.