The effect of COVID-19 pandemic on antibiotic usage during pregnancy.

Abstract

To investigated the usage of antibiotic during pregnancy before and during COVID-19 pandemic in Kingdom of Bahrain. This was a retrospective study of antibiotic usage in 2 groups of patients. The first group was 280 patients who attended the in active labor room pre-COVID pandemic. The second group was 193 patients who attended the labor room after the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the data discussed below explores the impact of COVID-19 infection before the development of full vaccinations against COVID-19 in Bahrain. The analysis confirmed higher usage of antibiotics during pregnancy post-COVID-19 outbreak (27.9% vs [versus] 5%), and the most notable difference was observed during the third trimester (17.1% vs 3.2%) followed by the second trimester (7.3% vs 1.1%). Likewise, there were more patients treated for urinary tract infection (16.1% vs 3.6%) and bacterial vaginosis (10.4% vs 0.7%) during the post-COVID period. There was no difference in the percentage of patients treated for upper respiratory tract infection among the groups. The analysis confirmed higher usage of antibiotic during pregnancy post COVID19.