Promoting good sexual health

Promoting good sexual health and positive sexual experience is a key challenge for everyone. There are many aspects to promoting positive sexual health including contraception, sexually transmitted infection, unintended pregnancy (especially teenage pregnancy), sexual identity, education, information and the need for appropriate services in place to address these.

The way that we feel emotionally and form relationships with others can have an impact on our sexual health

Facts

In Wales, the number of cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) has increased dramatically over the last few years. These include new HIV diagnoses, gonorrhoea, syphilis, chalmydia and genital herpes. Consequences of inadequately treated STIs can include pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility, cervical cancer and increased susceptibility to HIV infection.

Chlamydia has more than doubled over the past five years and often presents with no symptoms. It is estimated that between 70-80% of males and females will not have any obvious signs and symptoms. Chlamydia represents a particularly preventable source of infertility and reproductive ill health.

Teenage conception rates in Wales are the highest in Europe. Caerphilly borough currently has the 4th highest rate of pregnancies in under 18s.

Tips and Advice

Through appropriate and timely education programmes, information and access to services when required can help reduce STIs and unplanned pregnancies. There are many forms of contraception available to prevent unplanned pregnancies but only by using a condom can you reduce the risk of catching an STI.

When using a condom there are some things you need to do:

• Use a different condom each time you have sex and oral sex
• Make sure condoms carry the BSI kite mark, CE mark, or both. CE is the European safety standard mark
• Always check the expiry date on the condom packet and on the foil wrapper

 More information on sexual health is available from NHS Live Well

Local Contacts

All the information and local contacts ask your local reproductive health clinics for the Gwent Little Book. This is a small credit card sized book containing useful information about sexual health services. It was initially produced for young people but most of the services are available for all ages.  It contains a list of sexual health clinics, pharmacies participating in the Emergency Hormonal Contraception (EHC) scheme and information about where to get tested for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) or you may download the Gwent Little Book (pdf 105k) here.

Your GP can help you with most sexual health needs.