Obstetrics in Family Medicine by Paul Lyons & Nathan McLaughlin

Author:Paul Lyons & Nathan McLaughlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030398880
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Symptoms of Infection in Pregnancy

Although diagnosis of infection in pregnancy is critically important, symptoms of infection in prenatal patients may be absent or difficult to detect or interpret. Many infectious etiologies are asymptomatic. Syphilis, latent-phase herpes, HIV, and others may be present without producing any symptoms in the pregnant patient. For these conditions, routine screening is recommended for all pregnant patients by history, physical examination, and/or diagnostic studies.

Some disease processes produce characteristic symptoms, which should be further evaluated whenever present. Such symptoms as fever, chills, bleeding per vagina, severe abdominal pain, or dysuria should lead to prompt evaluation. For other disease processes, the symptoms associated with infection may be difficult to interpret or may be masked by some of the common symptoms associated with pregnancy. Cervical mucus production may be increased during pregnancy, and some women may interpret this increased mucus as infectious in cause. By contrast, some women may interpret an abnormal vaginal discharge as “normal” for pregnancy, delaying evaluation or failing to mention such symptoms during the course of prenatal care. Nonspecific abdominal pain is also a relatively common symptom occurring during pregnancy. Providers should be diligent in eliciting suggestive symptoms and should maintain a low threshold for following up such symptoms with appropriate diagnostic tests. As a general rule, women should be screened by history for symptoms that are suggestive of common infectious complications of pregnancy at each prenatal visit. Those patients who report such symptoms should be further evaluated for the possible presence of infection (Table 14.1).Table 14.1Antibiotics in pregnancy

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.