Fertility Info

You may thought that yeast infection is the most widespread vaginal infections in women. Actually, there is an even more common vaginal infection in women of fertile age, and that is bacterial vaginosis (BV) infection.

In the US, BV affects about sixteen percent of pregnant women and up to sixty-four percent of the general women population. Medical scientists are still trying to determine the exact bacterial vaginosis causes. What is known to date is that some changes occurred in the vaginal environment in BV.

In bacterial vaginosis, the delicate vaginal flora balance between the naturally occurring good and bad bacteria is disrupted – the population of good bacteria, lactobacilli, is outnumbered by a range of bad anaerobic bacteria. That’s the reason why most women find it difficult to permanently get rid of BV. However, these days more and more women successfully get rid of BV with natural BV cures.

Before continuing to take a look at bacterial vaginosis causes and risk factors, it helps a great deal to first remove some of the misunderstanding about this vaginal condition. Most importantly, you must understand that you don’t get bacterial vaginosis through:

* Sitting on chairs or toilet seats.

* Mattresses and linens or other beddings you sleep on.

* Swimming pools.

* Coming in contact with things around you.

So what are some of the things that can lead to bacterial vaginosis?

Known causes and risk factors of BV include:

1. Sexual activity

Although bacterial vaginosis is not considered as STD, medical scientists found an association between sexual activity and BV. However, it is still uncertain as to how sex can cause a change in the vaginal flora balance.

The majority of women diagnose with BV are active sexually, but the infection can also, though rare, take place in women who haven’t had intercourse. The BV-causing bacteria have also been detected in the rectum of virginal boys and girls. So far, sexual activity remains the strongest contributing factor of bacterial vaginosis.

What have been observed by medical scientists so far are:

* The risk of getting BV is greatly increased if the woman has more sexual partners.

* BV may be related to having a new sexual partner.

* The male partner(s) of women with BV may carry the same bacteria in their urinary tract, but the male does not experience any symptom of BV.

* Not using a condom during sex may predispose women to BV.

2. Vaginal douching

Medical research have found that vaginal douching increases the risk for disruption of the vaginal flora, and thus bacterial vaginosis. It was hypothesized that douching causes either an imbalance to the vaginal flora or causes inflammation due to the physical or chemical irritation. As a result, women may be easier to be attacked by BV infection. Most douche products on the market contain a lot of acetic acid and fragrance, and some also contain surfactant detergents.

Surfactant detergents have bacterial and viral killing properties by damaging their cell structure. At the same time, it also removes antibacterial factors on the vaginal cell membranes, leading to irritation of the vaginal wall lining and increasing the susceptibility to infection.

3. Other known causes of bacterial vaginosis include cigarette smoking, use of intrauterine device (IUD) for birth control, and stress.