Urinary tract infections are common in women, say doctors

Urinary tract infection is very common in women, with one in three having an episode before they turn 25. Contrary to the belief that dirty toilets lead to UTI, doctors say a woman contracts the infection by not voiding the bladder periodically.

Anatomically, women have shorter urethra. Around 18% of pregnant women experience UTI, and postmenopausal women contract the infection for want of oestrogen, said doctors who participated on Sunday (December 22, 2024) in a webinar on “Recurrent Urinary Tract Infection in Women – Management and Prevention”, organised by The Hindu and Naruvi Hospitals, Vellore, as part of its series on “Prevent illness, promote wellness”.

Consultant urologist Rohit Sethi said sexual intercourse, change of sexual partners, spermicide use, prior history, or a history of UTI in mother and sisters and a childhood history of the infection could cause UTI.

Nitin Kekre, head of the urology department at Naruvi Hospitals, said recurrent UTI in healthy, non-pregnant women was the most common and uncomplicated. In Tamil Nadu, it is common to diagnose diabetes when a woman comes with UTI, he added. Doctors must explain to their patients the correct method of collecting urine for laboratory investigation, he averred.

Ganesh Gopalkrishnan of Vedanayagam Hospital, Coimbatore, said patients who go hospital hopping and use multiple antibiotics or have uncontrolled diabetes are susceptible to complicated UTI. During COVID-19 pandemic, antibiotic misuse caused severe problems. Sometimes the infection could reach the kidney, which would require hospitalisation, sometimes for as long as a fortnight, he said.

Maneesh Sinha, consultant urologist at Naruvi Hospital, Bengaluru, said it was normal for gynaecologists to search for bacterial infection during pregnancy. Doctors do this to prevent infection of the kidneys. Since the enlarged uterus does not allow urine to go down, infection could travel from the bladder to the kidney, he explained.

The webinar is available at https://bit.ly/4iNbOSK.