Epidemiology and the prevention of peripartal mycoses.

About 30% of all pregnant women are affected by antepartal vaginal yeast contamination. During the past 40 years this incidence has remained unchanged throughout the world. Due to the close contact of the baby with the contaminated area during parturition, yeasts are transmitted to the skin surface of the newborn. Yeasts are still demonstrable in more than 10% of all newborn on the 5th day of life. All newborn presenting yeast contamination on the 7th day of life are likely to develop a clinically manifest thrush by the end of the 2nd week of life. If the yeast contamination is acquired at a later stage, the risk of infection is much lower. Extensive mycological examinations of the newborn nursing staff and of the environment of newborn have not indicated any causal relationship to contamination. The yeast reservoir of the maternal vagina may therefore, in the majority of cases, be regarded as the cause of perinatal thrush which affects about 13% of all newborn by the 4th week of life. A prophylaxis of neonatal thrush should thus be carried out before parturition. Both the incidence of vaginal and neonatal yeast contamination can be reduced by more than 60% by a general mycological examination of all pregnant women between the 34th and 36th week of pregnancy and treatment of a possible yeast contamination with a local antifungal.