**Management of Abnormal Vaginal Discharge in Pregnancy**

Sanusi Mohammed Ibrahim, Mohammed Bukar and Bala Mohammed Audu

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/62599

#### **Abstract**

Abnormal vaginal discharge in a pregnant woman causes discomfort and increas‐ es risk of complications. Management of such patient is difficult as the physician will need to distinguish leucorrhoea of pregnancy from pathological vaginal dis‐ charge and also to decide on the drugs to prescribe that are not contraindicated in pregnancy.

The objective of the study is to discuss the prevalence, causes and treatment of ab‐ normal vaginal discharge in pregnant women.

Searches from PubMed and using other scientific search engines were performed. The chapter was supported with findings from the authors' previous study on the same topic. In the study, high vaginal and endocervical swab samples were collect‐ ed from 400 pregnant women with complaints of abnormal vaginal discharge and another 400 controls.

The result showed that the prevalence of abnormal vaginal discharge in pregnan‐ cy was 31.5%. Vulval pruritus, 200 (75%), was a significant feature (*χ*2 = 1.011, *P* < 0.001), and *Candida albicans*, 160 (40%), was the commonest cause.

Although antibiotic sensitivity testing was not done for *Candida albicans*, *all the mi‐ croorganisms were sensitive to Augmentin*®

The prevalence of abnormal vaginal discharge in pregnancy was high and *C. albi‐ cans* was the commonest cause. Assessment of pregnant woman complaining of vaginal discharge for aetiology is necessary in order to give an appropriate treat‐ ment.

**Keywords:** Vaginal discharge, Pregnancy, Antibiotic treatment, Maiduguri, Nigeria

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
