Is vaginal douching associated with preterm delivery?

Background. To examine the hypothesized association be tween vaginal douching and preterm delivery, we conducted a study among women in a managed care organization in Atlanta, GA. Methods. We drew a stratified random sample of 262 preterm (20-36 weeks' gestation) and 804 term deliveries that occurred between January 1996 and April 1997. Data were collected from telephone interviews and medical records. We used proportional hazards regression to compute gestation-specific conditional probabilities of delivery. The risk of preterm delivery associated with douching was examined, adjusted for potential confounders. Results. Douching during pregnancy increased the overall risk of preterm delivery (hazard ratio = 1.9, 95% confidence interval = 1.0-3.7). Conclusions. Further research to clarify the relation between douching and preterm delivery should pay particular attention to the role of vaginal infections.