The first also emanates from rotting fish, the second from corpses. However, bacterial vaginosis does not always produce noticeable symptoms. Serious damage from vaginosis was first detected in studies linking the condition to premature birth. Sixteen percent of those women were diagnosed with bacterial vaginosis, and those women were 40 percent more likely to deliver prematurely than those who did not have the condition. Overall, bacterial vaginosis caused 6 percent of the early births in the study group.
Premature birth is one of the leading causes of infant mortality.
Although investigators haven t determined the precise mechanism by which bacteria vaginosis leads to premature delivery, they suspect the infection disrupts the amniotic sac. Studies have focused on Africa, where vaginosis is more prevalent than in the United States. In one study, Ugandan and U.S. investigators examined 4,718 pregnant women in rural Uganda. They found that about 50 percent of the women had some degree of bacterial vaginosis. A high prevalence of bacterial vaginosis may significantly boost the spread of AIDS, suggested study coauthor Ronald H. Gray of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, speaking at this summer s World AIDS Conference in Geneva.