The surprising body part not drinking enough water impacts

The health benefits of water have been widely flouted. So aware are you of the importance of drinking H2O you’re probably reading this while swigging your bottle of water right now.

But though you know that chugging the clear stuff can help improve your skin, make you feel more energetic and boost your immune system, increasing your water intake can have a surprising effect on a rather intimate body part. Your vagina.

Sherry A. Ross, M.D., a women’s health expert and author of She-ology: The Definitive Guide to Women’s Intimate Health. Period told Glamour that drinking more water can be good for your ladybits.

“A healthy vagina needs the same hygienic attention as any other part of the body, similar to the way we care for our face,” she said. “The skin of the vagina is susceptible to dryness if not taken care of properly.”

According to Dr Ross when you don’t drink enough water the outside skin of your vagina—including the labia majora and labia minora—are more likely to be dry. What’s more being dehydrated can cause the vulva and the inside of the vagina to feel drier too.

In basic terms, if you’re drinking enough water, your vagina should be, er, well-lubricated.

She went on to explain that this vaginal dryness can have knock on effects for our sex lives, because it can make sex more painful, and that not drinking enough water could also lead to down-there itchiness, burning and general pain. Worse still, it could even lead to or exacerbate a yeast infection. Yikes!

“Yeast and bacterial infections occur when there is a disruption of the normal pH balance caused by dehydrated skin in and around the inside of the vagina,” Dr Ross explains.

Of course, water intake alone isn’t the only contributing factor to a healthy vagina. Your diet, exercise, hygiene and sexual health practices can all have an impact on your down-there health.

So while drinking more H2O alone won’t be enough to keep your vaginal health in complete check, it will certainly help. And the rest of your body will thank you for it too.

*glugs water*

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