STIs During Pregnancy: Testing, Risks and Treatment

Key points

• No immunity: being pregnant does not protect you or your baby from sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
• Ask to be tested: testing and treatment should be part of routine prenatal care.
• Real risks: an STI can complicate a pregnancy and seriously affect you and the baby.

Why it matters

STIs can harm you and the baby, and can be more serious — even life-threatening — if you are infected while pregnant. That is why pregnant women should ask their doctors to test for STIs as part of routine care.

You may not know you have one

Most STIs have no symptoms. You or your partner could be infected without knowing. The only way to know is to get tested. The sooner care begins, the better the outcome.

How STIs spread

Through oral, anal and vaginal sex, and through genital skin-to-skin contact. Pregnancy changes none of this.

Lowering your risk

The only sure way to avoid STIs is not to have vaginal, anal or oral sex. If you are sexually active, you can lower the risk by:

• being in a long-term, mutually monogamous relationship;
• having partners who have been tested and are negative;
• using condoms the right way, every time.

If you test positive

• Your partners: they should be tested and treated too.
• Treatment: it depends on the infection. Some STIs can be cured with antibiotics that are safe in pregnancy. Others can be treated with antiviral medicines or other measures that lower the chance of passing the infection to the baby.

More from CDC and others

• STI fact sheets
• Congenital syphilis
• Condoms and other primary prevention
• CDC-INFO
• CDC National Prevention Information Network
• American Sexual Health Association

Sources

Based on "About STIs and Pregnancy," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The page's photograph, a stock image, is not reproduced.