Abstract

The prevalence of bacteriuria among 200 pregnant women attending antenatal at three health care centers namely; Bundu, Churchill and Potts Johnson in Port Harcourt, Nigeria was investigated. Socio-demographic and risk factor characteristics were obtained using structured questionnaires. Appropriate microbiological techniques were used to enumerate total coliforms, faecal coliform and staphylococcal population in urine samples. Mean values of bacterial counts in samples from Bundu ranged from 1.02 ± 0.02 x 10⁶CFU/ml to 2.21 ± 0.51 x 10⁶CFU/ml; from 0.83 ± 0.62 x 10⁶CFU/ml to 2.55 ± 0.32 x 10⁶CFU/ml for Churchill and from 0.84 ± 0.17 x 10⁶CFU/ml to 2.36 ± 0.37 x 10⁶CFU/ml for Potts Johnson. Generally, coliform and faecal coliform counts in the health centers were high; while faecal coliform counts showed significant difference (P<0.05). A total of 248 isolates belonging to species of 8 genera including Escherichia coli (18%), Staphylococcus aureus (15%), Enterobacter cloacae (14%), Enterococcus faecalis (15%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (14%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (13%), Bacillus cereus (5%) and Streptococcus constellatus (6%) were isolated. Prevalence of bacteriuria among the pregnant women in an ascending order is; Bundu (90%) < Churchill (93.8%) < Potts Johnson 94%. Furthermore, the prevalence of bacteriuria was significantly higher in pregnant women aged 26-30 years compared to those aged 0-20 years and 36-40 years (p<0.05). The 2^nd and 3^rd trimesters both had higher prevalence of bacteriuria. High prevalence of bacteriuria among pregnant women in this study highlights the need for awareness campaigns for good hygiene and sanitary practices as to reduce the incidence of bacteriuria.