Antibiotics are prescribed to treat gonorrhea, the National Women's Health Information Center says. Without treatment, the infection can cause serious complications such as pelvic inflammatory disease, an increased risk of contracting HIV, and infection that spreads to other parts of the body.

Symptoms of gonorrhea in women include painful urination or intercourse, vaginal discharge or irregular bleeding, and heavy periods. Many women have no symptoms.

You should speak to your doctor about being tested for the disease if you think your partner may have it.

"Most commercial lubricants are toxic to sperm, and couples who want fertility should think about carefully choosing the lubricant they want," said study author Dr. William H. Kutteh, a reproductive endocrinologist at the University of Tennessee, in Memphis.

For the study, Kutteh and his team tested four commercially available lubricants against a new "fertility-friendly" lubricant developed by the researchers.

Their lubricant, called ConceivEase, didn't adversely affect sperm motility, Kutteh said, although the other four lubricants did. The new lubricant, with a patent pending, is made by Reproductive Laboratory Inc. in Memphis. Kutteh is an owner of the company and the product is distributed by Sepal Reproductive Devices in Boston, he said.

Kutteh was to present the findings Monday at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists annual meeting, in New Orleans.

The test results could be good news for couples having difficulty conceiving, he said. "People are afraid of going to a fertility doctor because they think they will have to spend $10,000 on IVF [in vitro fertilization]," he said. "Sometimes all you need is a $14.99 oil change."

If sperm aren't moving properly, fertility is affected, Kutteh said. "The sperm have to move through the vagina, through the cervical mucus and out to the fallopian tube. Anything that decreases the motility of the sperm will make the pregnancy rate decline. Sperm can live for 48 to 72 hours."

For the study, five men who had initial sperm counts above 65 percent motility donated sperm. Kutteh's team then exposed the sperm to four commercially available lubricants -- K-Y Jelly, Replens, Touch and Astroglide, along with ConceivEase.

The effects on sperm motility were evaluated at 1 minute, 15 minutes, 30 minutes and one hour. While the ConceivEase maintained sperm motility at 65 percent, the others did not. At one hour, the motility of the sperm exposed to Touch was down to 10 percent, while sperm exposed to the other three lubricants was down to zero, the study found.

Kutteh said he first began noticing the effect of lubricants on sperm more than a decade ago. While at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, he published a report in the International Journal of Fertility showing that commercial lubricants were harmful to sperm motility, he said.

Kutteh said he's been giving the lubricant to his own patients for years. Lubricant use during intercourse is common among couples undergoing fertility treatment, he said, partly because ovulation-inducing agents can cause vaginal dryness.

The new lubricant includes light mineral oil, Vitamin E, and glycerol buffered with a certified growth medium. It protects the sperm from pH changes and other factors that can decrease fertility, according to literature from the company.

Dr. Jennifer Wu, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, called the new study interesting, adding that it "holds promise because it doesn't alter sperm motility at one hour."

But, she added, she'd like to see results beyond the one hour, up to 72 hours.

Wu said she typically advises couples trying to conceive not to use commercial lubricants at all, and she thinks that's common advice from doctors. "We don't want to do anything that narrows the window of opportunity for sperm to meet the egg."

And, while the commercially available lubricants were found to kill off sperm, Kutteh added a caveat for those couples not trying to conceive: Don't trust them as contraceptives.

More information

To learn more about infertility, visit the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

"There has been a dramatic increase in television programming directed toward young infants. This has occurred despite recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics that children younger than 2 years should not watch any television. Much of this programming is marketed toward parents as 'educational,' despite limited data to support this assertion," noted Dr. Alan L. Mendelsohn, of the New York University School of Medicine, and colleagues.

They found that over one 24-hour period, 149 of 154 mothers (96.8 percent) reported that their 6-month-old infants had a total of 426 exposures to television or videos. These included: 139 exposures (32.6 percent) to educational programs for young children; 46 (10.8 percent) to non-educational programs for young children; 205 (48.1 percent) to programs for school-aged children, teenagers or adults; and 36 (8.5 percent) to unknown programs.

The mothers reported that they talked to their infants during 101 (23.7 percent) of those 426 television and video exposures.

"Consistent with our first hypothesis, interactions were most commonly reported in association with educational content, especially among programs that had been co-viewed," the researchers wrote. "However, approximately half of the exposures consisted of programs not intended for young children; these were not associated with frequent interactions even when they were co-viewed."

"Our findings are important, because parent-infant interactions are associated with long-term developmental-behavioral outcomes. Verbal responsiveness is frequently seen in association with reading and playing with toys. Given the large amount of media exposure and low frequency of reported interactions, additional study is needed to determine whether media exposure can facilitate interactions of sufficient quantity and quality to be associated with benefits for young children," the researchers concluded.

The study was published in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Internal Medicine.

More information

MedlinePlus has more about children and television.

But that risk is moderate, emphasized the authors of a study in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

"Most adoptees are doing fine," said Margaret Keyes, lead author of the study and research psychologist at the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. Still, new data on the long-term health of adopted children is always useful, she reasoned.

"When you have all the information, you're better prepared to make decisions for your family," Keyes said. "You have information that your adopted child might be at a slightly increased risk, so you can be aware of that and can you use the social services agencies with which you already familiar through the process of adopting."

"There is no revelation here. This is consistent with previous research," added Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and author of Adoption Nation. "It's a good, solid piece of work. Adoptive parents can be reassured that their kids will be just fine, thank you. We do need to do a better job of learning how to deal with children and be prepared in case we are in that minority whose kids are represented in this study. It's not scary. It's cautionary."

According to background information in the article, some 120,000 children are adopted annually in the United States, and there are about 1.5 million adopted American children under the age of 18.

International adoptions are increasingly replacing domestic adoptions, with about 40,000 children transferred between more than 100 countries each year as a result of adoption.

Although some studies have found an increased risk of social, intellectual and emotional problems among children who were exposed to substances before they were born or who were neglected prior to adoption, the risk among children who don't have this kind of history hasn't been clear.

The researchers assessed 514 internationally adopted adolescents and 178 domestically adopted adolescents (aged 11 to 21) and compared them with 540 non-adopted kids of the same age.

Children who had been adopted scored higher than non-adoptees on continuous measures of behavioral and emotional problems, the team found. Adoptees were about twice as likely to have had contact with a mental health professional and of having a disruptive behavior disorder, according to the study.

Domestic adoptees were more than twice as likely to have an "externalizing disorder" (one that manifests in outward behavior) than international adoptees, the researchers added.

As one example, seven out of every 100 non-adopted kids met the criteria for ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), while 14 to 15 of adopted kids met the criteria, Keyes said. Still, the overall rate was not alarming.

To put it into perspective, Keyes pointed out that simply giving birth to a male is risky, since boys have a higher chance of being diagnosed with a disruptive behavior disorder than girls.

"It's important not to stigmatize adoption," Pertman said. "Adoption is not causing these problems."

A second study in the same issue of the journal looked at children who had lost a parent to death suddenly. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that these bereaved youngsters had triple the risk of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than kids with two parents still alive.

According to the article, 4 percent of children in Western countries have experienced the death of a parent.

More information

There's more on adoption at the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.

SUNDAY, May 4 (HealthDay News) -- New research shows that only half of American mothers intend to have their teenaged daughters vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV) if the girls are under the age of 13, despite government guidelines that suggest the opposite.

HPV, which is sexually transmitted, is the primary cause of cervical cancer. The first vaccine against the virus, Gardasil, was approved in 2006. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently recommends that 11- and 12-year-old girls be targeted for this vaccine, as most girls of this age are not yet sexually active, have not yet been exposed to HPV, and will therefore achieve maximum protection.

However, this study suggests that many mothers aren't willing to follow those recommendations.

"Mothers had a lower intention to vaccinate [younger] daughters," said study author Dr. Jessica Kahn, an associate professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "This presents a challenge, and provides us with an opportunity to educate mothers about the importance of vaccinating girls under 13 years of age because the vaccine will have a greater health impact if given before 13."

Kahn will present the findings Sunday at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting in Honolulu.

About 10,000 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed in the United States each year, with about 4,000 women dying of the disease annually.

Three-quarters of U.S. women will be exposed to HPV at some point in their lifetime and, at any one time, one-quarter have been infected.

According to one estimate, giving the vaccine universally would eliminate about 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. Gardasil protects against most, but not all, types of HPV that cause cervical cancer.

This study is the first national survey of its kind and also the first to measure attitudes towards the vaccine since it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2006.

Forty-nine percent of almost 10,000 respondents intended to vaccinate a daughter if she were 9 to 12 years old; 68 percent intended to vaccinate if the daughter was 13 to 15 years old; and 86 percent said they would vaccinate if the daughter was 16 to 18 years of age.

Specific beliefs about HPV vaccine were the most powerful predictor of one's intention to vaccinate one's 9-to-12-year-old daughter.

The belief that really stood out was that the vaccine would protect the daughter against cervical cancer. "That was not at all surprising to me," Kahn said. "[Other] studies have shown that the most powerful factor driving mothers' decisions is the desire to protect a child from harm."

The next most powerful predictor were beliefs that the vaccinations would not cause a child to engage in riskier sexual behaviors.

"That implies we need some studies to prove or disprove this concern," Kahn said. "It also is going to be important for clinicians to address that head on with parents."

If a clinician recommended the vaccine, the mom was more likely to decide to vaccinate her daughter.

Mothers were also more likely to go for the vaccine if they thought their daughter was at risk for HPV.

All of these factors could be incorporated into messages, including those seen in brochures and posters about HPV and the vaccine, Kahn said. She was also lead author of a paper appearing in the May issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology that found that interventions which address personal beliefs about the HPV vaccine as well as system-wide barriers to vaccination could lead to higher vaccination rates.

"This shows that there's a difficulty in having mothers recognize that their children will become sexually active at a relatively young age," said Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology/oncology at Ochsner Health System in Baton Rouge, La. "It's a process and it's an attitudinal change that has to occur."

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more on HPV and cervical cancer.