The 1 Thing You Need To Stop Doing To Your Vagina

For SELF, by Zahra Barnes. A scary new report adds one more item to the “why women shouldn’t douche” list. Gynecologists have been telling their patients not to clean their vaginas with douches for years—and now they have yet another strong point against it: The practice is associated with nearly a doubled risk of getting ovarian cancer, according to a large study from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “Douching is just wrong,” Sherry Ross, M.D., an ob/gyn and women’s health expert at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, tells SELF. “There is no reason to douche at all. It’s marketing at its finest to get that vagina smelling like Hawaiian tropics.” Douches are available prepackaged in drugstores (although some women DIY them). They’re usually bags or bottles filled with a mixture of water and vinegar, baking soda, or iodine, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Office on Women’s Health. Most douches come complete with a tube or nozzle that goes into the vagina and makes it easier to spray the liquid up there in an ostensible effort to maintain good vaginal hygiene.  Related: Here’s Why Your Vagina Is Dry And How To Deal With It Your vagina actually cleans itself, so there’s no need to buy products that are specially made to do the job. And not...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news