Coital Frequency and Male Concurrent Partnerships During Pregnancy and Postpartum in Agbogbloshie, Ghana

Abstract

During pregnancy and postpartum, women in high HIV prevalence regions continue to be at high risk for acquiring HIV, due to both behavioral and biological mechanisms, despite declines in coital frequency as a pregnancy advances. We estimated differences in rates of partnership concurrency for men with and without pregnant or postpartum sexual partners. We used monthly retrospective panel data from Ghana from three perspectives: couple-level data, female reports of pregnancy and male partner concurrency, and male reports of concurrent partnerships and female partner pregnancy. Coital frequency increased during the first trimester and then declined with advancing pregnancy. However, in all three analyses, there was no compelling evidence that men with pregnant or postpartum partners had additional concurrent partnerships. Our findings suggest that even though women's sexual activity likely declines during pregnancy and postpartum, they may not be at increased risk of HIV/STI due to their partners seeking additional partnerships.

Screening for Resistant Bacteria, Antimicrobial Resistance Genes, Sexually Transmitted Infections and Schistosoma spp. in Tissue Samples from Predominantly Vaginally Delivered Placentae in Ivory Coast and Ghana

“…Increased antimicrobial resistance rates are also quite common in bacterial agents, causing sexually transmitted infections (STI) like gonococci in Ghana [ 45 ]. STI and sexual HIV transmission are still frequent in Ghanaian individuals, although HIV seropositivity rates have declined in Ghanaian female sex workers over the last decades because of the implementation of prevention programs [ 46 ], and sociological assessments did not reveal a particularly increased STI risk for pregnant Ghanaian women because of higher frequencies of sexual contacts of their partners outside the main relationship [ 47 ]. In Ivory Coast, increased STI rates have been reported predominantly for sex workers [ 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]; however, scarcely available data on non-preselected populations suggest low to intermediate one-digit percentages for gonococci and chlamydia as well [ 54 ].…”