Does BV cause any problems?
In most cases, BV doesn’t cause any problems. But, there can be some serious risks when a woman has BV: • Pregnant women with BV more often have babies who are born early or with low birth weight. • The bacteria that cause BV can sometimes cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), an infection of a woman’s uterus (womb) and fallopian tubes (tubes that carry eggs from the ovaries to the uterus). PID can cause infertility (not being able to get pregnant). It can also increase a woman’s risk for ectopic pregnancy (when a pregnancy occurs outside the uterus), which can be life threatening. • Having BV can make a woman more at risk for getting infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. • If a woman has HIV and BV, she is more likely to pass HIV to her sex partner. • BV can increase a woman’s chances of getting other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), such as chlamydia and gonorrhea.
