Cleanliness is second to godliness.
Lets discuss something considered taboo. Or let’s just call it by its true name The vagina collection!
The levels that women go to ensure cleanliness in the vagina range from the simple ones to the ones this writer has never heard of.
The vagina is a goddess, one that women ensure she can live up to her status all the time. No one likes a foul-smelling vagina. Every girl likes her body to be one with her vagina, feeling that beat in the walls and knowing everything is working parfait.
After taking a shower, drying off and applying nice smelling jelly or lotion on your skin, you want your vagina to also get the same feeling. You want to feel either some mint, strawberry, or vanilla essence each time you meet the goddess.
And if we are being honest, you want your bae to take in these marvelous scents before you can get to sex. Glorious! That is all easy to understand.
Cleanliness Taken A Douche Higher
Cleaning up is a ritual. And we all take the necessary adjustments when we are cleaning up to ensure the best of results.
For some women, this involves having to clean inside the vagina.
You need a good wash everyday that is no doubt. During your periods, you feel the nudge to clean more often.
Perhaps your first reaction might to be clean it with water, soap or popular feminine douches. And this is when you become a douchebag! Ooops!
Douching is a practice that involves cleaning inside the vagina with water, soap or feminine products.
We disseminated a survey through Whatsapp to twenty women to find out what they think about douching. In the survey, we asked women if they douche or know any of their relations who douche and what products they use. We also asked them what they thought were the impacts of douching. The final questions investigated whether they would like a gynecologist’s opinion about the same.
Out of the 20 women we interviewed, 7 of them admitted to douching. They claimed that they douche to rid off foul smells that come from the vagina. When asked what they used to douche, many of them said plain water while a few use feminine douches like betadine intimate wash which were prescribed by doctors.
Women who said that the douching products manifest no actual harmful effects. They just leave the vagina clean, smelling nice either like strawberry or vanilla and that’s just alluring.
I know many of us would exude royalty every time we came close to our vaginas.
The women who responded ‘no’ to douching claimed that the vagina, as a goddess, is self-cleansing and douching might result in pH changes that leads to many infections. They admitted to leave the cleansing of the vagina to her mystical innerworkings.
All our respondents were eager to hear a gynecologist’s opinion about douching.
We talked to Anne Odaro, a medic at Anna Holistics whose practice also focuses on women sexual and reproductive health.
An exasperated medic who tries to demystify myths and misconceptions about health asserts, “Douching is extremely dangerous. It is a highly discouraged practice!” She exclaims.
“It kills the normal bacterial flora leaving the vaginal wall susceptible to infections.” Anne continues to explain what can result if the bacteria flora ratio is disturbed.
She concludes with a rather resigned tone,
“There is a chance that it can cause cervical cancer if constantly done.”
Killing your Vagina Slowly?
Even if some women claim that douching helps them feel fresher, there is little scientific evidence that it makes you healthier or cleaner.
Gynecologists around Kenya advise women of all ages to avoid douching unless it has been prescribed to them after consultation with a health expert.
- Douching encourages growth of vaginal bacteria that cause infections.
- Women who douche have a 78% likelihood of getting pelvic inflammatory disease according to Web MD.
- Douching is also related to ectopic pregnancies for women who do it once or more times a week.
- When you douche at least once a week, you increase your chances of getting cervical cancer.
As a concerned woman I will tell you, only douche if you are a douchebag.
