Prevalence of Urinary Tract Infections Among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Clinic In Some Selected Hospitals In Anambra State

Urinary Tract Infection is one of the most frequently seen medical complications in pregnancy. This study reports the prevalence of urinary tract infections among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in some selected hospitals in Anambra State, Southeastern Nigeria. The aim of this work was to determine the prevalence of urinary tract infection among the pregnant women, the trimester peak of infection and the antibiotic sensitivity of the isolated organisms. Microbiological analysis was performed on the urine samples obtained from 500 pregnant women aged 21 - 40 years. Standard questionnaires was used to obtain socio-demographic data from the pregnant women and data obtained was analysed statistically to determine the relationship between the variables and their significance. Cystine lactose electrolyte deficient agar, MacConkey and blood Agar were used to isolate the organisms where every specimen that yielded pure heavy growth of bacterial pathogens of >105 cfu/mL of urine was considered significant. These bacterial isolates were identified based on cultural morphology, microscopic, biochemical and molecular characterization. The results obtained showed that 101 (20.2%) pregnant women were infected and age bracket 26-30 years had the highest incidence of UTIs with infection rate of 31.7%. Pregnant women in their second trimesters were most infected with infection rate of 49.5%. Escherichia coli was the commonest isolated organism 71(70.3%), followed by Stapyloccocus aureus 26(25.7%) and Enterococcus feacalis 4(3.96%), with 30%, 65% and 100% bacterial sensitivity to gentamycin respectively. Gentamycin therefore was the most effective antimicrobial drug against the bacterial isohtes. All the isolates assessed for Escherichia coli, Enterococcus feacalis, and Staphylococcus aureus genes wer£ positive with the amplification of 16sRNA gene of these organism.