STD's and Pregnancy: What you need to know to protect yourself

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STD's and Pregnancy: What you need to know to protect yourself

Being informed you have a sexually transmitted disease is scary, being informed you have a sexually transmitted disease while you're pregnant is horrifying.The STD, which is short term for sexually transmitted disease, is a communicable infection transmitted by sexual intercourse or genital contact. There is a tough and shocking link between the three letters STD and a pregnant woman. Blindness, deafness, mental retardation, and pneumonia; these are just a few of the devastating consequences that STD's can have on a woman's baby. According to the Center for Disease Control website consequences of an STD can be significantly more serious, even life threatening for a woman and her baby if she becomes infected during her pregnancy. STD's can be passed from mother to fetus and even mother to her newborn.For example, syphilis can cross the placenta and infect the baby while it is still in the uterus. Other

cases such as gonorrhea, chlamydia, hepatitis B, and genital warts can be transmitted to the baby during delivery; as it passes through the birth canal. HIV can strike in three different ways; first it can cross into the placenta during pregnancy, second it can infect the baby during the birth process, and third HIV can be transmitted to the infant through breast feeding. The effects of STD's on babies include, but are not limited to; the baby being born dead (stillborn), low birth weight, eye infections, pneumonia, infections in the baby's blood streams, neurological damage, deafness, blindness, acute hepatitis, chronic liver disease, and mental retarded.Since most of these problems can be prevented it is strongly recommended that women be screened at their first prenatal visit for STD's, even if they have been previously tested before becoming pregnant. While bacterial STD's such as chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis

can be treated and cured with antibiotics during pregnancy, there is no cure for genital herpes and HIV. Women who have active genital herpes at the time of delivery have the option of delivering through a C- section to prevent the disease from being transmitted, this is also a option for women with HIV. Although there are many options to protect your baby and yourself once you have become pregnant, it can cause severe physical and emotional damage if not taken care of prior to pregnancy. The surest way to protect yourself and your future child from STD's is to maintain a long term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested. Latex condoms when used correctly are also highly effective but cannot completely reduce the risk of the transmission of a STD. For more information of the effects of individual std's on pregnancy visit thecenter for disease control and prevention website at

www.cdc.gov.--Number of Pregnant Women with STD'sBacterial vaginosis: 1,080,000Herpes simplex virus 2: 880,000Chlamydia: 100,000Trichomoniasis: 124,000Gonorrhea: 13,200Hepatitis B: 16,000HIV: 6,400Syphilis: <1 ,000

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