Doctors aren’t sold on vaginal detox
Holistic, organic cleanse praised by advocates, but health experts warn of harmful effects
Vaginas have been causing quite the stir on social media this week, in particular a story regarding stuffing little balls of perfumed herbs into your vagina for a cleanse. Why? For a vaginal detox, a new way of restoring feminine health down there.
Vaginal detox, also known as womb detox, can lead to a potpourri of potential problems, warn health experts.
“Just leave your vaginas alone, ladies!” says Dr. Draion Burch, a celebrity obstetrician and gynecologist known as Dr. Drai. “There is no hard scientific evidence to support the use of herbal cleansing balls. Leaving these balls in the vagina for too long can increase your risk of toxic shock syndrome.” Vaginas don’t need a detox. “It’s self-cleaning. If you are having an issue down there, make an appointment to see your doctor,” says Dr. Drai, of Drdrai.com.
Touted as a holistic, organic approach to restoring feminine health, Seanjari Preeti Female Detox Pearls/Seeds are sold online, including on Amazon, and The Herbal Womb Detox Pearls, by the Floridabased Embrace Pangaea company, are distributed online, too.
Embrace Pangaea offers packages for different conditions including fibroids, endometriosis and yeast infections. There’s also one for vaginal tightening. The pearls cost anywhere from $15 US to $480 US.
Happy clients boast of amazing results at embracepangaea.com. Blogger baby-monstrous says it made her vagina healthy — dead tissue came out and by the third day, she wrote: “Feel tighter; lubricated; no itch; no odour.” Tweets “Your vagina (and your man), will thank you after you use these.”
Don’t do it, says Toronto gynecologist Dr. Wilfred Steinberg. “Pure rubbish — B.S.,” he says. “A perfect example of how women are being exploited into spending money on hoaxes and scams … (they’re) being induced to take foreign materials into their bodies that have no proven evidence of benefit and have not had due diligence performed to rule out harm.”
Meanwhile, founder of Embrace Pangaea, T.C. Atkinson, is taken aback by the negative attention the pearls and her company, in particular, are getting. According to Atkinson, “the recent propaganda claiming that our Herbal Womb Detox Pearls can lead to toxic shock syndrome is purely an unfounded and baseless attack on another holistic product without merit.”
“Womb wellness” is an area of interest for Atkinson, who has a chemistry degree.
“We agree that the vagina is selfcleaning; however, much like other organs in the body, this self-cleaning ability can get reduced due to a person’s lifestyle,” says Atkinson.
Meanwhile, according to blogger Dr. Jen Gunter, stuff the whole detox idea — and not in your vagina: “Your uterus isn’t tired or depressed or dirty and your vagina has not misplaced its chakra. They want no real help from you unless there is something wrong and they will tell you there is something wrong by bleeding profusely or itching or cramping badly or producing an odour.”
The San Francisco gynecologist further writes: “There is no such thing as a detox or a cleanse. They are fake terms used by snake oil salespeople to lighten wallets.”