Treating Yeast Infection During Pregnancy

Becoming pregnant is one of the most important times in a woman’s life. Unfortunately it is during pregnancy that women are the most prone to contracting a yeast infection. Although a candida infection will not harm your baby, it is a very uncomfortable experience for the mom-to-be.

When you are pregnant, the body goes through many hormonal changes and your body may have trouble keeping up with them, especially in the vaginal environment because of increased sugar content in vaginal secretions. The yeast will feed on the sugar and grow, causing an imbalance of too much yeast and therefore an infection.

If left untreated you can pass the fungus to your baby’s mouth during delivery. An oral yeast infection, more commonly known as “thrush”, can be treated with the prescription-only Nyastatin within 7 to 10 days. But why would you want to risk passing on a painful yeast infection to your newborn baby when you can cure it before that happens?

Doctors will often prescribe vaginal cremes and suppositories if you have a yeast infection during pregnancy. However what doctors won’t tell you is that there is a popular ingredient in these treatments called boric acid, which is also used in rat and roach extermination and can be harmful to the body. The oral medication, Diflucan, has not been proven safe during pregnancy and lactation.

A yeast infection occurs naturally in the human body and therefore must be dealt with naturally. But before you go on the internet looking for natural remedies, you have to be careful because there are natural treatments out there that will actually do more harm than good, especially while you are pregnant.

Apple cider vinegar, garlic and certain yogurts can prove beneficial yeast infection treatment methods but you would need to use these items on a regular basis to see any results and even then you are only weakening the candida infection – it will come back sooner or later.

A natural remedy that you should be cautious of is olive leaf extract. Although this is a powerful detox, it will actually cause more harm than good because when the olive leaf extract kills bacteria faster than normal you will not only put a strain on your kidneys and liver because of the increased demand of filtering out the extra toxins, you also run the risk of contracting “Herxheimer’s Reaction” – Fever, chills, headache, muscle pain, and skin lesions due to all the dead bacteria in your system. Needless to say, this method is not recommended, especially during pregnancy.