Microbial infections in saudi women during pregnancy, parturition, and puerperium an experience from published literature (1976–2018)

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the prevalence of maternity-associated (pregnancy, parturition, and puerperium) infections reported from different regions of Saudi Arabia based on the published literature between 1976–2018. STUDY DESIGN: PubMed, Google Scholar, and EM-BASE web databases were searched for relevant literature until September 2018. The infection risk strength was represented by odds ratio (OR) with the cor-responding 95% confidence interval (CI). Numerical data were collected, and descriptive statistics were performed. RESULTS: A total of 34,109 women under maternity subjects reported in 26 articles from different regions of Saudi Arabia were included for viral/parasitic infections. The overall relative risk of virus infection was found to be more than 2 times higher than that of Toxoplasma gondii parasitic infection (RR=2.45, 95% CI 2.37–2.52, p=0.0001). The prevalence of herpes simplex virus infection was seen highest in Riyadh (98.3%, OR=10.25; p=0.0001). Likewise, cytomegalovirus infection was more prevalent in Makkah as compared to Riyadh (OR=1.59, p=0.002). Measles virus infection was more prevalent in Makkah (93.3%) and Jeddah (91.6%) as compared to Riyadh (78.1%). The prevalence of HIV infection was higher in Riyadh, whereas the incidence of viral hepatitis was less in the entire kingdom. CONCLUSION: The cur-rent findings suggest the need for special attention given to screening, prevention, and control strategies for women during and after the stages of maternity. (J Reprod Med 2019;64:410–418).