How Our Obession with hygiene may be damaging our sexual health
There are so many soaps, purfumes, and chemical ridden body washes on the market that I sometimes wonder how we manage to stay healthy. It is known that douching can actually cause vaginal infection, yet many women do it. Harsh cleansers can also damage the delicate skin and upset the vagina's natural PH balance. It is an open portal into the body, which makes it particularly suseptible to chemicals.
As a woman who has suffered from repeated candida, cystitis, vulvodynia and suspected PID, I was told by my doctor never to use soap or shampoo on that area. At first the idea horrified me. Years of social conditioning meant I struggled with the idea of not using soaps. Surely to be clean, one had to use soap? I was a girl who was brought up to believe in twice daily showers, soaps, body washes, talc and body sprays. Now I was being told to wash in steroid, or simple, old fashioned warm water.
The doctor re-phrased himself
'The skin on your vagina is the same as the skin on the inside of your mouth and you wouldn't put a bar of soap in your mouth, would you?'
It was a thought provoking question. As well as this were strict instructions never to scrub whilst washing, as this can cause infection, and to avoid all other chemicals like bubble baths, plastic ridden sanitary protection and even washing powders for my underwear. When the advertisements for new scented tampons were aired on TV, I cringed. Surely putting artificial chemicals on them would make them a breeding ground for infection? I know that the women in a sexual health support group I belong to, wrote letters of concern to that particular company.
Perhaps if we treated our bodies as the natural things that they are, we would have less opportunistic infections?
