2. Case Presentation
The mother
A 32-year-old pregnant woman was admitted to the emergency department because of irregular abdominal pain and fever at 33 weeks and 3 days gestation. Her body temperature was 38.2 °C on admission. Fetal heart rate monitoring showed a fetal heart rate of 110 to 180 beats/minute, reflecting intrauterine distress. The baby was delivered by lower uterine cesarean section under general anesthesia. The amniotic fluid was turbid (II°) but no abnormalities were observed in the umbilical cord or placenta.
When the mother was admitted to the hospital, her white blood cell count was 24.65×109/L with a neutrophil percentage of 86.4%. The patient was administered cefoperazone and tazobactam as antimicrobial therapy. Her detailed laboratory data are shown in Table 1. Bacteria were cultured from blood, sputum, and vaginal secretions. Duplicate bacterial cultures of the mother’s blood during admission and hospitalization revealed no pathogenic bacterial organisms.