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Updated: Aug 23, 2026

Models of Murine Vaginal Colonization by Anaerobically Grown Bacteria
Published on: May 25, 2022
Predictors of bacterial vaginosis in adolescent women who douche
Jane R Schwebke1, Renee A Desmond, M Kim Oh
1Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294-0007, USA. schwebke@uab.edu
Objective:
Risk factors for bacterial vaginosis (BV) include douching and sexual activity, although the exact cause of BV is unknown.
Goal:
The goal of this study was to determine the relative significance of douching as a risk factor for BV.
Study Design:
Two hundred fifty adolescent women who regularly douched were enrolled into a randomized douching intervention trial. Behavioral questionnaires and testing for sexually transmitted diseases and BV were performed. Associations between baseline characteristics and behaviors were compared for teens who were BV-positive and BV-negative at baseline.
Results:
Positive correlates of BV included multiple partners, recent sexual intercourse, douching after menses, recent douching, and gonorrhea. Of these, douching after menses showed the strongest association (odds ratio, 5.11; 95% confidence interval, 1.99-13.15) in a multivariate analysis.
Conclusions:
Douching after menses was strongly correlated with BV; however, difficulty remains in trying to evaluate douching and sexual behavior independently.
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