As the name implies, sexually transmitted diseases or often called venereal disease is a disease that can spread due to sexual behavior. This type of disease is suffered by many people because it can attack anyone, including you. However, you can still prevent sexually transmitted diseases by doing the right way.
Anyone at risk of contracting venereal disease?
If you've ever had sex, you have the potential to get sexually transmitted diseases. Why is that?
Sexually transmitted diseases strike everyone indiscriminately
It is true that people who often mutually couples and people who have same sex are more at risk for this disease. However, data show that even housewives are also at risk for developing sexually transmitted diseases.
Based on data from the Center for HIV / AIDS Information Data from the Ministry of Health, the highest reported number of AIDS was in the homemaker group, which was 6539. This data is from 1987 to 2014.
Already millions of people are exposed to sexually transmitted diseases and the number will continue to grow
Data show that in the United States, it is estimated that nearly 20 million people contract sexually transmitted diseases each year. This number is fantastic, ie half of the total number of people aged 15-24 years.
Other data say, 80% of the total people who are actively engaged in sexual activity have certainly been exposed to one of the venereal diseases, namely HPV. In fact, by 2015, diseases like chlamydia are thought to be suffered by 65% of all youth aged 15-24 years. Gonore followed behind with 50%.
Third, sexually transmitted diseases often do not cause symptoms
You may be unaware that you have the disease because of many sexually transmitted diseases, especially in the early days of the infection. New symptoms will appear when the disease is said to be severe.
How to protect yourself from contracting venereal disease?
The absolute risk factor that causes your contracting by sexually transmitted diseases is due to sexual intercourse, whether it's the hubugan penis and vagina, oral sex or anal sex. If you do not have sex, your chances of getting infected will be zero.
However, that does not mean the only way to prevent it is that you should not have sex at all. Here is how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
1. Be faithful to your spouse
You can minimize the risk of contracting venereal disease by doing less sex with fewer people. The smallest risk is of course faithful to your sole partner at home. Of course, with the note that your partner is also not infected with venereal diseases.
2. Stay away from alcohol
Why is steering away from alcohol to be one form of prevention? If you have sex but in a state of alcohol, the risk of sex safely will decrease. In other words, when you are in a state of unconsciousness or intoxication, you risk to have risky sex. For example, you can hurt your partner so that bacteria or viruses causing venereal diseases can enter the wound.
3. Conduct vaccination
You can do HPV vaccination to reduce your risk of HPV exposure. Based on data from the American Sexual Health Association, within 6 years of enactment of HPV vaccine has successfully reduced the prevalence of HPV in women aged 14-19 years by 64% and 34% of women at the age of 20-24 years. Thus, HPV vaccine has been shown to reduce the risk of HPV.
4. Invite your husband to use condoms
Although you can still get herpes or HPV when using condoms, most condoms can prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Some condoms even contain substances that can kill disease-causing microorganisms. If you want more romantic, you as a wife can put a condom on your husband.
5. Keeping vaginal hygiene especially before and after sex
According to WebMD, you need to clean the genital organs before or after sex to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. By maintaining the cleanliness of the genital area, you can prevent the infected microorganisms causing sexually transmitted diseases.
Choose an antiseptic cleaning fluid containing povidone-iodine, to eradicate the bacteria that cause infection in the vagina. Use a female cleaner immediately after each sex so that your vaginal health is protected. Do not forget, vaginal cleanser is quite used on the outside of the vagina only, because the inside of the vaginal opening already has its own cleaning mechanism with the help of good bacteria.
