WOMEN'S HEALTH

 

Yeast outbreaks not linked to partner 

Women with recurrent symptomatic yeast infections often believe that their sexual partners may be to blame for re-infecting them. But a new study finds that outbreaks in women are not related to infections in their partners. 

The idea was that yeast infections, recurrent problems for about 40 percent of women,  tended to be passed to their partners, who then passed them back after the symptoms had cleared up. 

But writing in the December issue of the Journal of Women's Health, researchers said that symptomatic yeast infections seemed to follow their own course. 

The lead author, Dr. Barbara D. Reed, said that male partners of infected women often carried the same organism. ``But whether they did or not,'' Reed said, ``it had nothing to do with whether the women had a recurrence of their symptomatic yeast infection.'' 

The researchers did find, however, that some sexual practices, such as oral sex, might lead to yeast infections in some women with recurring infections.