# Little girls and vaginal irritation?



## mommyofshmoo (Oct 25, 2004)

This was not a problem when dd was a young toddler, so maybe this is a question for the children boards, but....

What is it with little girls and vaginitis?!??!?!?!

My dd 2.5 gets some kind of irritation in her vagina like every few days. Generally it's just redness, but recently she got a little fissure right at the top. It doesn't always bother her- but the fissures sure do. This problem aggravates the other probem we sometimes have of her not wanting to put clothes on. I guess pants draw her attention to her discomfort.

I know certain things make this worse- bathing suits, not wiping pee-pees dry enough, but she gets it nomatter what.

So far I treat fissures with antibiotic ointment, and redness with calendula cream, but she hates feeling the wetness of the cream, so we end up applying it and wiping it off- which seem counterproductive.

Anyway- has anyone else had this problem, has anyone else found something that helps? I know that sometimes her less than gentle "self exploration" can't be helping, but I don't think that's the whole problem.

Thanks!

Jennifer

Oh, BTW- she doesn't wear diapers anymore, and it doesn;t look like diaper rash.


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## hipumpkins (Jul 25, 2003)

Hope you don'tmind if I lurk here b/c DD is also potty trianed and gets red, too. Sometimes even her little butt. I can't figure it out. She hates the cream, too. I don't know what a fissure but I don't think she has one since it usally red or just redder. I'm guessing a fissure is somehitng raised.


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## mommyofshmoo (Oct 25, 2004)

I fissure is a little cut.

I think maybe she gets them from her fingernails?


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## goodjoan (Jan 8, 2005)

Does she show any signs of yeast? Pimply redness, itchy, discharge? Yeast can be mild and chronic (as opposed to acute and really horrible) and it can cause the skin to be weak and prone to tearing. That might be the underlying cause of the fissures and the redness. I'd try some warm baths with baking soda to help normalize the skin pH, lots of fresh air time and then a thin film of OTC lotrimin, maybe at night to see if that helps. If it's really bugging her, you could ask her dr to swab the area and culture it to find out if there is a particular bug that's growing there that isn't supposed to be there, and what it might be sensitive to so you can get rid of it!


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## 3girls1boy (Nov 20, 2001)

My oldest DD went through this too. It started after she got out of diapers. I think it was not wiping well enough or wiping too much, but her labia would get red and irritated. Sometimes she couldn't sleep because of it. A quick bath always seemed to help. I also gave her my old "peri bottle" that they give you in the hospital after you've given birth. Then we could fill it with warm water and have her gently wash herself when it was bothering her.

When I mentioned it to our family doctor, she gave me a sample of some ointment that is used to treat bacterial vaginal infections. I would just have her dab a little on externally where it was sore. It might have been a placebo effect, but it seemed to help.

Now she is 12 and a half and hasn't had a complaint like this in a while, but I can remember that it would happen every once in a while when she got older--maybe once or twice a year--and I would just have her rinse in the warm water--the last time she mentioned anything to me, she was about 10 or 11.


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