Chlamydia in women: risks for the unborn baby

Chlamydia in women is one of the most serious diseases transmitted between sexual partners, as it often has no clear symptoms, quickly becomes chronic, and in case of pregnancy can cause severe complications  in the future baby during his movement through the birth canal. It is possible to prevent risks for the child by timely diagnosis of chlamydia, therefore, when planning a pregnancy, you should undergo an appropriate examination for this difficult infection and, if detected, treat both sexual partners.

How is chlamydia transmitted in women and its symptoms

The reason for the development is a small bacterium Chlamidia trachomatis, parasitizing in cells, and it can live in the body for a long time without making itself felt, and become more active when immunity decreases. Chlamydia is sexually transmitted, and it is extremely rare that the infection can be caught through household and hygienic items in common use.

Today, chlamydia is considered one of the most common sexually transmitted infections, and every year it is diagnosed more and more often, especially among sexually active men and women of about 20-40 years of age. Chlamydia in women is often found in combination with other various sexual infections, in particular with trichomoniasis, gardnerellosis, mycoplasmosis. This combination aggravates the course of the disease and complicates its treatment.

Treatment of chlamydia in women is usually carried out by a gynecologist, since this infection, affecting the urogenital area, causes many gynecological diseases, and in half of the cases of infection leads to tubal-peritoneal infertility.

Symptomatics most characteristic of chlamydia in women

The peculiarity of chlamydia in comparison with other sexually transmitted infections is that the symptoms of infection appear rather quickly – usually within one to two weeks. A characteristic sign of chlamydia in women – glassy discharge of a yellowish tint from the vagina, having a mucopurulent character and a strong unpleasant odor. During the interview, the patient may express the following complaints:

• Itching in the vagina and burning sensation when urinating,
• pain in the lower abdomen,
• Sometimes a low temperature may rise during the acute period.

If left untreated (sometimes the symptoms are blurred, and the patient does not pay attention to the first signs of the disease), the symptoms of chlamydia in women may subside, but the disease will go into a chronic stage, the infectious process will begin to ascend through the genital tract, causing severe inflammation of the appendages and cervix , causing endometritis and salpingitis.

The health risks of chlamydia in women

The most severe consequences of chlamydia infection in women – these are infertility, spontaneous abortions, the development of dangerous ectopic pregnancies. This may be due to inflammatory processes that cause the formation of scars and adhesions in the fallopian tubes.

Another danger of chlamydia – its effect on a newborn baby, which can be infected with chlamydia when the baby passes through the birth canal. The consequences can be the most unfavorable – from inflammation of the mucous membranes of the eyes to extremely severe pneumonia and encephalopathies with a fatal outcome.

Main treatments for chlamydia in women

Chlamydia therapy is carried out taking into account the bacterial nature of the causative agent of the disease and its features such as parasitism inside human cells. The choice of antibiotics is made among those groups of drugs that are able to penetrate the cell wall – recommended macrolides, fluoroquinolones, tetracycline drugs. In addition, when choosing an antibacterial drug, a possible co-infection accompanying chlamydia is also taken into account.

The treatment regimen is supplemented with immunomodulators, probiotics, enzymes, vitamins, local therapy is symptomatically selected.

Thus, the treatment of chlamydia in women does not have ready-made algorithms and requires an individual selection of a therapy regimen for each patient, depending on the degree of damage to her genitourinary system and the age of onset of the disease.