The Efficacy of Preventive Antibiotic Treatment During the Puerperium Among Pregnant Women With Recurrent Urinary Tract Infections

During pregnancy functional modifications in the urinary tract influence the function of the urinary tract system. Those changes raise the risk of urinary tract infections. The most common bacterial infections during pregnancy are urinary tract infections. Actually, asymptomatic bacteriuria is the most common infection in up to 8% of the population. Symptomatic infection may cause cystitis or include the renal calyces and parenchyma and cause pyelonephritis. There are few common protocols for bacteriuria treatment. The recurrence rate after treatment is 30%. Preventive treatment with nitrofurantoin has been demonstrated to be effective, although there is a small risk to acute respiratory distress which resolved with cessation of the treatment. Renal infection is the most common serious infection during pregnancy. Complication of renal infection can lead to ARDS or urosepsis. Renal infection usually develops during the second trimester and has been related to prim parity and young women.

About 20% of women will deteriorate to renal insufficiency. 30-40% of cases will be followed with recurrent bacteriuria later on, for this reason, a preventive treatment is recommended until delivery. In previous studies the preventive treatment reduced the bacteriuria rate from 38% to 8%.

After delivery, the morphological changes including edema, bladder hyperemia and a raise in the urinary volume, pass away up to 3 months post partum. There is only slight information regarding the rate of bacteriuria during puerperium, most of the information relates to the early puerperium period. In addition, the consequences of such infection are unknown.

The aim of this study is to estimate the efficacy of preventive antibiotic treatment during the puerperium.

Objectives