Aunt Vadge: 5-year-old with labial adhesion cracked labia

Hello Aunt Vadge,

My girl is 5 years old, and has labial adhesion. I was using hormonal cream, but it helped just for that time, and once we stopped using it, her labia minora closed again. It is not giving any discomfort to my daughter, so we stopped using it. Her labia minora is closed almost completely. There is just a very small opening, maybe 0.5cm long. 

Now, she has started getting cracks on her vulva. They are healing fast, but they appear, then another and then another. She is not complaining that it is itchy today. I helped her to wash herself before bed, and noticed that the upper side where her clitoris was very red, and she said, sore. A tiny bit of blood was on the cotton wool when I wiped it. 

What could it be? What should I use? Now I am just cleaning it with water, doing chamomile baths, and apply some Sudocrem [nappy rash cream].

And thank you… 

Mother
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Dear Mother,

Thanks so much for your email. Labial adhesion is one of modern medicine’s great mysteries, however it definitely seems to have a link with a lack of oestrogen as I’m sure you know. Oestrogen plays a significant role in the integrity of our skin, keeping it supple and strong.

To introduce some light low-dose plant-based oestrogens into your daughter’s system instead of using oestrogen cream, you could add some servings of soy-based whole foods. Don’t go overboard, but some something like tempeh or tofu – maybe a 10-20g serve per day to start off with – may just include enough phyto-oestrogens into her system to counteract the labial adhesion problem. You will need to do some trials here, but it should do the trick.

If there is no change, increase the serving. Once you start to see a change, do a regime of adding soy in once every couple of days and see what works as a basic maintenance dose. You certainly do not want to be giving your daughter a lot of soy products over a long period of time, as its impact on her sexual development isn’t that clear, and you don’t want to take any chances.

Plant-based oestrogens act in the same way – albeit a few hundred times weaker – than human oestrogens, and while giving a lot of soy products to children is not recommended (for this very reason), there is no reason you can’t harness the very simple, easy way for you to introduce these compounds and see if it helps your daughter’s labia to remain supple and to even unstick itself without too much intervention.

It’s worth a try! It should work quite quickly too, so you’d likely see results within days and weeks.

If you cook tofu and tempeh regularly, you will know how to make it tasty, but check out some recipes for kids to make tofu taste good and be fun to eat. Alternatively you can add tofu to food after turning into a type of cream, adding it to a smoothie, or somehow disguising it another way. Tofu isn’t every kid’s favourite food!

Please let us know how you go – we’d love to hear your results.

Warmest regards,
Aunt Vadge



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