Puerperal infection is a common complication during postnatal period in developing countries. Bacterial species, drug resistance, and genetic characteristics were investigated for a total of 470 isolates from puerperal infections in Bangladesh for a 2-year period (2010-2012). The most common species was Escherichia coli (n=98), followed by Enterococcus faecalis (n=54), Staphylococcus haemolytic...

The death of a friend solved a centuries-old, oft-fatal mystery My doctrine is produced in order to banish the terror from lying-in hospitals, to preserve the wife to the husband, and the mother to the child… Ignaz Semmelweis, 1861 TODAY, A VERY LARGE proportion of women giving birth receive antibiotics, potent and sometimes in combination, during their accouchement. Routine prophylaxis is wide...

The clinical value of information on the risk of future psychiatric illness in women who have experienced puerperal (post-partum) psychosis has been limited by inconsistencies in terminology and nosology. Here we report rates of subsequent puerperal and non-puerperal episodes, in a well characterised sample of women diagnosed with clearly defined bipolar affective puerperal psychosis (n=103). O...

POST-ABORTAL and puerperal infection due to Clostridial organisms have been reported periodically ever since H. M. Little's paper appeared in 1905. Hyperbaric oxygen has been proved to be of great therapeutic value in Clostridial infections (Brummelkamp, Boerema and Hoogendyk, 1963; Brummelkamp, 1964, 1965) but we feel that its use for uterine infections has not been sufficiently emphasised. Si...

POST-ABORTAL and puerperal infection due to Clostridial organisms have been reported periodically ever since H. M. Little's paper appeared in 1905. Hyperbaric oxygen has been proved to be of great therapeutic value in Clostridial infections (Brummelkamp, Boerema and Hoogendyk, 1963; Brummelkamp, 1964, 1965) but we feel that its use for uterine infections has not been sufficiently emphasised. Si...

The study of the bacteriology of the genital passages may be said to have begun in 1887, with the publication of Gonner's .article (1), in which he came to the conclusion that autoinfection of the parturient woman is impossible, and that puerperal septic troubles must be attributed to imperfect asepsis on the part of the lying-in woman's attendant, medical or otherwise. Since then obstetricians...

BACKGROUND Manual removal of the placenta is an invasive obstetric procedure commonly used for the management of retained placenta. However, it is unclear whether antibiotic prophylaxis is beneficial in preventing infectious morbidity. We conducted a systematic review to determine the efficacy and safety of routine use of antibiotics for preventing adverse maternal outcomes related to manual pl...

Puerperal fever was a devastating disease. It affected women within the first three days after childbirth and progressed rapidly, causing acute symptoms of severe abdominal pain, fever and debility. Although it had been recognized from as early as the time of the Hippocratic corpus that women in childbed were prone to fevers, the distinct name, ‘‘puerperal fever’’ appears in the historical reco...