Urine Bacterial Counts after Sexual Intercourse

Abstract

THE association between sexual intercourse and subsequent acute symptomatic urinary-tract infection in women is so well known that these episodes are often labeled "honeymoon cystitis." Trauma to the relatively short female urethra during intercourse, allowing the bacteria that colonize the introitus to ascend to the urinary bladder, has been invoked to explain the association. Because recurrent urinary-tract infection in women is a perplexing problem for both doctor and patient, various measures have been proposed to prevent recurrences, ranging from scrubbing the perineum before intercourse to emptying the bladder soon after. The effectiveness of such methods has not been documented. Vosti . . .