Assessment and Management of Asymptomatic Bacteriuria in Pregnancy

Background: Asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnancy is defined as the presence of a significant amount of bacterial growth in a urine culture taken from a urine sample and the absence of symptoms of urinary infection such as pain or urgency.Asymptomatic urinary tract infection is an important risk factor for developing acute symptomatic infection later in pregnancy, and it was also associated with a preterm labor, intra-uterine growth retardation and low birth weight infants. Objective: This prospective study was aimed to assess the incidence, causative organisms, response to medication and follow-up for recurrence of asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnant and non-pregnant women in a randomized pattern with maximum safety procedures to both mother and fetus. Patient and Methods: This study included 100 pregnant and 50 non-pregnant women were screened for the prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria from March 2016 to May 2017 at AL-Zahraa University Hospital and Cairo Fatemic Hospital. All the subjects were clinically identified to have no signs and symptoms of urinary tract infection. The age ranges of the study and control groups were between 18-30 years. All were subjected to bacteriological screening of mid-stream (MSU). Results: Revealed that 4/100(14%) and 6/50(12%) were positive for asymptomatic bacteriuria in the study and control groups respectively. The most prevalent organism was the E. coli (71.4%,83.3%) in both groups respectively. Conclusion: All pregnant women should be screened for bacteriuria and subsequently treated with appropriate antibiotic therapy. Acute cystitis and pyelonephritis should be aggressively treated during pregnancy.