Possibly a GQ topic but I thought I’d try here.
This may sound a little weird but I am truly curious.
A well-meaning relative of mine is always giving me advice on how to take care of my infant daughter. Most of it is general stuff but she has me perplexed with her most vehement advice.
She tells me whenever I change the baby’s diaper to make sure to separate all the folds of her vagina because if I don’t, the opening (and or folds) will grow together.
Now, I have never heard this advice from any of the healthcare professionals who showed us all the bathing, changing, caring tips before we took her home. None of my friends has ever heard of this. I am too embarassed to ask her pediatrician–I’m afraid someone might think “sexual abuse”.
My relative says her child’s pediatrician told her this. The woman is not an old woman who had her kids eons ago–she’s in her early 50s–her kids are in their 20s.
Does anyone know where this comes from and by chance, if it’s true? I mean, I know you have to clean inside the folds when she is changed but that’s for cleanliness, not to keep body parts from growing together.
Senior nursing student and mother of three (including two girls) here. No, the labial folds will not grow together, even if they were to stay in contact for an extended period of time. As you said, you should clean them at each changing, but that’s all there is to it. I have no idea where your relative heard this, but I kinda doubt it was from a medical doctor.
Labial fusion occurs in about 1.5% of girls, and its maximum incidence is between age 3 months and age 4 years. The most common cause of the problem is trauma, such as from straddle injuries, sexual abuse, compulsive masturbation. etc. But also poor hygiene can play a role, and here is where cleaning is important. General good hygiene is sufficient, washing the area with a washcloth. Manually separating the labia is generally not needed.
just tell your well meaning relative that you aren’t worried about labia fusion as you are planning to blow into your your infant daughter’s belly button to blow out her penis and testicles.
It actually happened to my daughter when she was about a year old. She got nappy rash, and I went to the chemist and asked for an appropriate cream. A few days of treatment later and she looked for all the world like she’d been scalded. Took her to the local doctor, who said she had had a reaction to the cream, which was not, in fact, an appropriate one. The GP told me what to use, and the reaction, and nappy rash, cleared up, but it took a while.
Next baby health clinic visit, the nurse there did a hip check and noticed the fused labia. That nurse advised me that we should have been separating the labia each cleaning. (I was going to say “her labia”, but it didn’t read too well!). The paediatrician to whom we took the poor mite also advised separating the labia with each cleaning, but that internal cleaning wasn’t necessary.(!) Luckily the problem resolved without surgery by use of a cream (steroid? oestrogen?) which had to be rubbed into the fused area. (Her father said that he didn’t mind changing nappies, but that particular task was over his limit!).
QtM, the phrase “poor hygiene” sits uncomfortably with me. as we were assiduous in her care. (Our daughter was 2 months premmie, and there is something about spending time in a NICU that makes a first-time parent even more overcautious). Unless the paediatrician was just oversimplifying for a distressed parent, it happened 'cos she was raw because of the reaction to the cream.
Do you think that while gently separating the labia each clean might be unnecessary in the absence of any other factors, (though the baby health nurse and the paediatrician did advise it), perhaps it might be a neutral to good idea if the girl has nappy rash or some other form of skin reaction?
mame, I should have said “due to inflammatory conditions arising from poor hygiene or dermatitis, or infectious processes”. And when an inflammation is present in the vulva, it is indeed good practice to manually separate the labia.
Unfortunately my answer was incomplete. I also focused mainly on the care of a healthy female perineum. Mea Culpa.
lucretia, with declared medical expertise goes the responsibility to be as sure as possible that one’s answer is correct. Even after 20 years of practicing medicine, I try to ensure what I say is still considered true by the mainstream medical community before posting it. Even then, there’s lots of opportunity for errors of omission and comission, as you can see here.
You are absolutely right, Qadgop. It’s a good lesson to learn. I’d just never heard of such a thing, either from school, or in my own experience, and it didn’t seem logical that such a thing could happen. But then, I was thinking mainly of healthy, intact labia, which is what is seemed the OP was referring to.
Well, the best schools teach us to continue learning. I’d never heard of labial fusion in med school either. And it wasn’t until I came to have a patient with it that I had to dig for info.
And I do so love the internet for such purposes! In 5 minutes I can become conversant with diseases and treatments I’d never encountered before! And if that 5 minutes is just before I see a new patient who is coming in to discuss that disease/treatment, I end up looking sooooooo brilliant!
evilbeth, we were recommended to use Vaseline[sub]TM[/sub] after each clean if further inflammation occurred, just to ensure that the labia didn’t rejoin again. You might care to check with your baby health people if it is regarded as an advisable precaution if babybeth should happen to get nappyrash. She may not have had it yet, but neither had mine till this occurrence. We had been, in fact, quite smug about it!
QtM, Ta! (smooths ruffled feathers back into place).
A relate baby care procedure that may have caused confusion… after a baby boy is circumcised, you have to check at each cleaning to make sure there are no “adhesions”. And this is as much fun as it sounds for all concerned.
Oh, yes. I got the psychic trauma of having to touch Aaron’s penis to make sure it healed properly, and Aaron got the joy of having his mom touch the sorest part of his body no less than six times a day.
