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Gynecologic Health

Sex and Yeast Infections: Is There a Link?

Summary & Participants

Are yeast infections sexually transmitted? Many women think so, but in fact yeast infections almost always appear on their own, with or without sexual activity. Still, some forms of birth control may increase a woman's risk, while others should be avoided during a yeast infection. Tune in as doctors discuss what women should know about yeast infections and sex.

Medically Reviewed On: July 09, 2008

Webcast Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Because of the vaginal symptoms of yeast infection, many women think it's a sexually transmitted disease. But though there may be a few cases where an infection is linked to sexual activity, the condition almost always appears on its own.

DAVID ESCHENBACH, MD: Yeast infections are not in the general category of sexually transmitted diseases, even though they can be occasionally transmitted sexually. Just simply because the vast majority of the infections come from the woman herself, who then from either changes in her environment or other changes, it occurs spontaneously, allow the yeast to overgrow and cause symptoms.

ANNOUNCER: Yeast infections are usually caused by changes in the vaginal environment, which allow naturally occurring yeast to grow excessively in the vagina. In a small number of cases, the infection may be transmitted by a man

WILLIAM LEDGER, MD: I think if a woman is having unprotected intercourse with an uncircumcised male who has balanitis-who has inflammation due to yeast-I think she clearly has a higher risk of getting a vaginal yeast infection than a woman who doesn't have that exposure. But there aren't many men like this, and I think overall it's pretty hard to show a real relationship.

ANNOUNCER: A more likely sexual cause of infection is receiving oral sex, though this is also relatively rare.

WILLIAM LEDGER, MD: I think the risk for a yeast infection following oral sex is related the person providing the oral sex being colonized in the mouth with yeast organisms. I don't know whether saliva, changes the local immune response, but I think we've found that many of these people have contamination with the yeast, and that's the source of the infection.

ANNOUNCER: Other than these rare cases, yeast infections are not likely to be transmitted from partner to partner, though other infections can be contracted this way.

DONNA SHOUPE, MD: The number of sexual partners a woman has probably doesn't have any significant bearing on the number of yeast infections that she gets. It can have a big impact on the number of bacterial infections that she has, but in terms of yeast infections, there's really no clear link and it generally has no correlation.

ANNOUNCER: This means that women who have what seems to be a yeast infection after any kind of sexual activity should check with their doctor to make sure it's not something more serious.

DAVID ESCHENBACH, M.D: I think the only way you can really differentiate a yeast infection from one of the other infections that would be sexually transmitted would be to receive an examination from a physician or a health care provider. Other than that, the unfortunate thing is that the symptoms are so indistinguishable and so general that it's very difficult to say, this discharge represents a yeast infection and a certain other discharge represents a sexually transmitted infection.

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