Avoid Douching To Prevent Pregnancy Complications
Douching may not be the best thing for women who want to become pregnant. It has been associated with low birth weight and ectopic pregnancies. I was surprised and the high percentage of women cited in the article that douche on a regular basis. Read more:Women who douche frequently--and then become pregnant--appear more likely to have a low-birth-weight baby than women who don't douche, a new study shows.
For More Information on preventing complications and ectopic pregnancy, visit: www.getpregnantover40.com
Douching is a personal hygiene practice, but its health benefits remain unproved, says study coauthor Kevin Fiscella, a physician at the University of Rochester (N.Y.) School of Medicine.
In fact, some scientists link the practice to a vaginal infection that can arise when natural protective flora are killed off in the vagina (SN: 9/5/98, p. 158). Women with such infections have a higher risk of giving birth prematurely.
Other studies have suggested links between douching and ectopic pregnancy, a dangerous condition in which the fertilized egg implants outside the uterus. Douching may also increase incidence of infertility and of pelvic inflammatory disease, an infection within a woman's reproductive tract. The new study is the first to link douching with low-weight newborns.
Fiscella and his colleagues analyzed data collected from 4,665 women across the United States who had given birth before 1988. About half of the women douched regularly. In the December 1998 OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY, they report that 9.7 percent of the women who douched gave birth to low-birth-weight babies, compared with 5.8 percent of women who didn't douche regularly.
