Implications of complicated urinary tract infection in pregnancy

Introduction. Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common bacterial infections, with women being the most af­fected. Almost 25% of women develop recurrent infections, and 50% of them experience at least one episode during their lifetime. Pregnant patients are considered to be at higher risk for UTIs due to the physiological changes as­so­­cia­­ted with pregnancy, which increase the risk of severe in­­fec­­tious complications for both the fetus and the mother. Ob­jec­tive. The aim of the study is to observe the extent to which risk factors re­la­ted to urinary tract infection during preg­­nan­cy affect the health outcomes of the patient and the fetus. Materials and method. A case-control study was conducted on 51 preg­nant women, of which 15 had com­pli­ca­ted urinary tract infection. Results. The re­­sults showed that young ma­ter­nal age (under 19 years old) is a significant risk factor for complicated UTI (p=0.0089) and the Apgar scores at 1 and 5 minutes were significantly lo­wer in newborns from mo­thers with complicated UTI (p<0.001). Furthermore, there were significant differences bet­­ween the studied groups regarding salary status, socioeco­nomic status, and edu­ca­tion level (p<0.05), with pa­­tients having complicated UTI showing lower salary and socioeconomic status, as well as a lower education level. Con­­clu­­sions. The study high­lighted that more than half of the patients were minors or pregnant at young ages (18-19 years old), most coming from socioeconomically dis­ad­van­taged backgrounds with low educational levels, em­pha­si­zing their vulnerability to com­pli­ca­ted urinary infections du­­ring pregnancy.