Not being able to have a child can torment you for the rest of your life and can significantly cause your marriage. While some people are born important, others get infertility in their youth or middle age, which can be due to many factors, but the most common one is untreated STDs.
Being sexually transmitted, STDs mainly affect youths and young adults between the ages of15-24 because they are sexually active. STDs mostly affect women because they rarely show symptoms, though they also affect men.
Though most of them are curable, many people leave STDs untreated because they don’t know they have the infection, as most don’t show signs and symptoms. This is why it is crucial to go for STD testing regularly.
Below are some STDs that can cause infertility either directly or indirectly.
STDs that can directly cause infertility
When you think of STDs and infertility, chlamydia and gonorrhea should first cross your mind because they are the most common STDs causing infertility directly.
Chlamydia
Chlamydia is a bacterial infection and the most common STD affecting both men and women. Chlamydia spreads through vaginal, anal, or oral sex and rarely shows signs; therefore, it can lie in your body without knowing.
If you leave chlamydia untreated for a long, the infection can spread to the uterus, fallopian tube, or ovary. This can lead to scarring in the organs. When it does in the fallopian tube, it leads to pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which causes a barrier preventing the fertilization of the ovary by the sperm, thus causing infertility. It can also cause scarring in the uterus, making the fertilized egg implant outside the uterus leading to ectopic pregnancy.
In men, when not treated early, chlamydia can spread to the epididymis-sperm duct, causing it to swell, thus interfering with sperm production. It can also affect the urethra-a tube transporting semen and urine, thus causing infertility.
Gonorrhea
Gonorrhea is the second most common bacteria; infection. It also affects both men and women who are sexually active between the age of 15-24. Gonorrhea usually doesn’t show symptoms; therefore, without a test, it can leave in your body for a long time and spread to other areas like the fallopian tube, ovary, uterus, urethra, and epididymis.
The infections in these reproductive organs can lead to tubal factor infertility in both men and women.
STDs that indirectly cause infertility
While chlamydia and gonorrhea are the most common STDs causing infertility, other STDs can lead to infertility but not directly by infecting and destroying the reproduction organs.
STDs like herpes can cause infertility indirectly by making couples avoid sex during the outbreaks, thus prolonging the process of conceiving. The virus manifested in blisters and sores during the outbreak, transmissible through contact.
Though syphilis can affect reproductive organs and lead to epidydimitis, it causes infertility indirectly, like herpes.
Human papillomavirus can also lead to infertility by increasing the chances of developing cervical cancer in women. The removal of these cancerous from the cervix can cause infertility.
Conclusion
Leaving STDs untreated for some time can lead to infertility. Therefore, it is important to regularly go for STD screening and get appropriate treatment if you are positive.
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