ABSTRACT

The present work was carried out to study the prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria (ABU) among pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic of our rural tertiary care hospital Chennai Medical College Hospital and Research Centre and to correlate the culture positive cases with age, gravid status, trimester and sexual activities, to find out the bacteriological profile of ABU prevalent in the rural antenatal women. Out of 100 samples collected for ABU among the rural pregnant women, Pus cells were found significantly in 32, but bacterial isolates were grown significantly in 13 of the samples studied, hence the prevalence of ABU was 13%. In this study the commonest isolates were Escherichia coli (69%) followed by Staphylococcus saprophyticus (15%) and Enterobacter species (2%). ABU was observed more among women belonging to the age group of 30 years and above and it was significant statistically (p<0.01). Statistical analysis of ABU among trimester of women did not reveal any significance. ABU was independent of gravid status of pregnant women.   

Keywords : Antenatal, Asymptomatic; Bacteriuria; Pregnant women; Prevalence; Tertiary care hospital