Thursday, July 9, 2009

When STDs lead to infertility

Doctors don't have to tell 18-year-old "Rose" (who doesn't want to reveal her real name) the importance of using a condom every time she has sex.
"There really is a limit to how much you can trust somebody," the young woman said.
At 14, Rose contracted two sexually transmitted diseases: gonorrhea and chlamydia. She said she got the STDs from her first boyfriend.
"We used condoms at first. Then, me being naïve, we stopped," Rose recalled. "I thought he was only having sex with me."
The STDs went untreated and eventually developed into pelvic inflammatory disease, or PID, a condition that can lead to infertility.
Dr. John Douglas, director of the Centers for Disease Control's Division of STD Prevention, called infertility a "down-the-road concern" for many teens.

No comments:

Post a Comment