Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new study that found women giving birth in the U.S. are three times more likely to have syphilis today than they were approximately eight years ago.
The rise in syphilis has coincided with a spike in congenital syphilis cases, which is when a mother with untreated syphilis passes the infection to her infant. For infants born with congenital syphilis, the effects can be severe and sometimes life-threatening. Specifically, the report found that more than 10,000 women who gave birth in 2022 had syphilis — an increase from 3,400 cases in 2016.
