Quantitative bacteriology of amniotic fluid from women with clinical intraamniotic infection at term

Amniotic fluid was collected through an intrauterine catheter from 52 women with clinical intraamniotic infection and from 52 uninfected matched control women. The amniotic fluid was cultured quantitatively for anaerobes and aerobes. Patients with intraamniotic infection were matched with the control women on the basis of gestational age, interval from membrane rupture to specimen collection, and interval from membrane rupture to delivery. The patients with intraamniotic infection had a significantly higher mean temperature (38.4 vs. 37.1 C) and a higher mean leukocyte count (15,740 vs. 11,740 cells/mm3). In 80.6% of specimens from the women with intraamniotic infection and 30.8% of those from the control subjects, greater than or equal to 10(2) colony-forming units (cfu)/ml were isolated from the amniotic fluid (P less than 0.001). Also, in 69.2% of the former and 7.7% of the latter, there were greater than or equal to 10(2) cfu of isolates considered to be "high-virulence" isolates/ml (P less than 0.001).