Welcome to Natural MD Radio, your place to hear the whole truth on health and medicine for women and children and get the tools you need to take back your health naturally starting now. I'm Dr. Aviva Rong. Hello lovely listener to Natural MD radio

welcome back to this next new episode and I just want to give you a heads up. I know a lot of you mamas listen to my

podcast with your children in the background or in car seats while you're in the car. This episode is rated

R for blunt discussion of anatomical parts and adult behaviors, so if this isn't something you want your kiddos to hear, you might

hit the pause button and listen a little bit later. With that said, let's take a dive

into this week's topic,

vaginal ecology, what you know to keep things healthy down there

to prevent infertility, vaginal infections,

pre-term labor, group E-Stp, pelvic pain, vaginal dryness, and more.

I'm a vaginal ecologist. You might be going, say what? Has Dr. Aviva lost her mind? Yes, you heard that correctly. I'm a

vaginal ecologist. You see like your gut, skin and many other parts of your body, your vagina has her very own unique microbial

environment, the vaginal microbiome.

And as with any ecosystem, ecology is the branch of science that deals with the relationship of organisms

to one another and their environment.

Your vagina has its own ecosystem that interacts with everything

that's going on in your life around you and your life inside you.

Your overall health affects the health of your

vaginal ecology and so does your environment and your vaginal ecology in turn

affects your overall health.

You and your microbiome create your internal ecosystem and your external day-to-day world and your

exposures influence this. As an important aside, I just want to get

semantic for a minute here. I actually don't like the word vagina at all, not because

...