Are vaginal yeast infections contagious?

Are vaginal yeast infections contagious?

Michael Tahery (Obstetrician & Gynecologist) gives expert video advice on: What is the difference between a yeast infection and bacterial vaginitis?; How did I get a vaginal yeast infection?; How will my doctor test for a vaginal infection? and more...

Not really the way we think that it is. A woman can't really give it to another woman. But it can be transmitted to a man that has not been circumsised, especially. Because the yeast, or the bacteria really, can go under the prepuce, or the skin around the penis and can grow there. So if a woman's treated, and then she has intercourse with a man that has not cleaned under that skin, then she can get reinfected with that organism once again. So it's very important for male partners to pull the skin back every time they take a shower, and they clean well under the skin, and that should avoid any problems. Very rarely, male partners can become chronically colonized by these bacteria or yeast organisms. There's also no way to really detect that in a man, so if that so happens, then we would have to treat the man empirically if we've done everything else and the woman partner has done everything she can to avoid these infections to come but they keep coming back.