When your body pops out a baby, a lot of body areas change. Your stomach has to stretch to accommodate a small human, meaning loose skin is on the horizon. And your vagina has to expand during delivery, which is sure to change the shape and feel of things down there.
This happens to all moms who delivery their baby vaginally, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But one Reddit user found herself second guessing her own postpartum body changes after her husband dropped a not-so-subtle hint.
“This morning I woke up to a gift on my nightstand. It was a cute sparkly pink bag with a sweet note from my husband attached,” aaplmns wrote in a recent post. “Inside the bag was a Je Joue Mimi vibrator, panties, my favorite bath foam, and body butter from The Body Shop, two kinds of lube… and something called Like A Virgin 24 Hour Tightening Cream.”
Whoa, hold up. Was aaplmns’ husband actually vagina shaming her?
She went on to explain that she gave birth to her second child in July and had fourth degree vaginal lacerations (indicating that there was so much tearing, her vagina and rectum were no longer separated). That’s incredibly painful, but somehow aaplmns was back to having sex only six weeks postpartum, she wrote.
Needless to say, aaplmns has taken her husband’s gift pretty personally. “I’m so embarrassed,” she stated. “It’s hard to describe but I feel like less of a woman, like my time to be sexy and fun with my husband has passed. I’m even wondering if he’s thought about cheating.”
We have no clue why her husband thought gifting that cream was a good idea. Hate to break it to you, mister, but there’s exactly zero evidence showing creams like that even work.
“I know of absolutely no cream that would tighten your vagina,” Mary Jane Minkin, MD, clinical professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Yale University School of Medicine tells Health. Yep, it’s that simple.
Dr. Minkin says anyone who claims to see results from a product like the one aaplmns’ husband left for her is likely experiencing a placebo effect.
However, there is one thing that really can tighten your vagina postpartum, if this is something you want to do: kegel exercises. No familiar with kegels? They involve tightening and contracting the muscles that support your uterus, bladder, small intestine, and rectum. Doing them should feel similar to the way it feels when you clench to stop yourself from peeing.
If you want to give kegels a go, Dr. Minkin suggests doing about three sets of 10 every day. Everyone is different, but if you stick to it, you should start to notice a difference within a few months.
The only other thing that can truly tighten the vagina is surgery, Dr. Minkin says, but that should be reserved for extreme cases, like when a woman has given birth to multiple large babies. The procedure is called a “posterior repair” and is for patients with a medical need, like bowel dysfunction after delivery.
To get our top stories delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Healthy Living newsletter
Source: Read Full Article