11 REASONS YOUR VAGINA SMELLS BAD

 Despite all of the marketing that tells you otherwise, there is likely nothing wrong with your vaginal odor. It’s completely natural and normal for your vagina to have some kind of scent. And, no, that scent probably won't be a field of wildflowers. It's a vagina, not a perfume counter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“When you look at what’s normal, it can have a mild or slight odor that’s not unpleasant,” Lauren Streicher, M.D., an associate professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, tells SELF. “There shouldn’t be a strong odor and it shouldn’t smell like the zoo or fish.” So if your discharge smells bad but not fishy, you’re probably OK (but you should still check out the reasons your vagina might smell below).

 

Vaginal odor is like sweat—everyone has their own scent, Jessica Shepherd, M.D., an assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology and director of Minimally Invasive Gynecology at The University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, tells SELF. And chances are you smell just fine! But if you're noticing a change in your vaginal odor that doesn't go away, it's worth bringing up with your doctor.

Here are a few things that might cause your vaginal odor to go awry:

1. You accidentally left a tampon in there.

 

It happens—and probably more often than you’d think, says Dr. Streicher. Some people may put in a “just in case” tampon toward the end of their period and forget about it, don’t remember that they already have one in before putting in a new one, or forget and have sex with one in and it gets pushed sideways into the back of cervix, she says. “Every gynecologist has had the experience of a woman coming in with an odor, discovering it was a forgotten tampon, and feeling mortified,” she says. Unfortunately, it really, really stinks. “A forgotten tampon causes the absolute worst vaginal odor,” Dr. Streicher says.

The smell is usually caused by old blood, which has a bad scent when it oxidizes, Dr. Shepherd says. It can also change the pH of your vagina (which should be between 3.5 to 4.5), allowing it to become a breeding ground for different bacteria or an infection. While having a tampon lodged in your vagina stinks (literally), it’s luckily easy to remove during a visit to your gynecologist.

 

 

2. You have a bacterial infection.

 

Bacterial vaginosis (usually just known as BV) is the most common vaginal infection in women ages 15-44, per the CDC, and it happens when there is too much of certain bacteria in your vagina. This throws off the pH of your vagina and can create a bad, fishy odor in the process.

Experts aren’t sure what causes BV or how some people get it, but they do know that it usually occurs in people with vaginas who are sexually active. People who douche are also at an increased risk of developing BV. The odor actually happens due to the change in your vaginal pH when the balance of good and bad bacteria down there is thrown out of whack, Dr. Shepherd says. Luckily, it'll go away once BV is treated with antibiotics, Dr. Streicher says.

 

3. You ate something funky.

 

You’ve probably heard that eating pineapple or citrus fruits can make you smell sweeter down there, and that fried foods can make you stinky. “I hear this all the time, but it’s all anecdotal,” Dr. Streicher says. There’s no scientific evidence behind this, but there could be something to it.