Vaginal Discharge During Pregnancy

Video Transcript

"Hello! I'm Michelle Collins, and I'm a certified nurse-midwife and professor of nursing at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. And I'm here today to talk to you about vaginal discharge in pregnancy. There are two types of vaginal discharge in pregnancy. One can be seen as normal and one is not normal, and I'll address both. The normal vaginal discharge of pregnancy is just caused by an increased hormone production during the pregnancy. And so women will feel like there's a little bit of a constant moistness in their panties and it will have no odor, no color to it, or just be slightly white. And that's sort of seen as a cleansing agent to keep the vagina free of bacteria and it's harmless. It's okay to wear a panty liner everyday but not to wear a tampon because that can put bacteria up inside the vagina. But women will feel much fresher if they do wear a panty liner and change frequently throughout the day. Now abnormal vaginal discharge can be a sign of infection or other problems with the pregnancy. If a woman has a vaginal discharge that's very irritating to her, that itches, or burns, or she notices burning with urination on the outside of her perineum, or inside the vagina, or she notices a very strong or foul odor to the discharge, then she should notify her midwife or her physician right away. Also if the discharge seems more liquidy or more watery than usual, this can be a warning sign that possibly she's leaking amniotic fluid. And so with any discharge outside the normal of what I described, a woman should let her provider know so that it can be checked out right away."