- Now comes a part of this demonstration
where I'm probably going to ruin
some of your favorite breakfast foods.
Oh, smells like lemon yogurt.
All of these are totally normal consistencies
of vaginal discharge.
Vaginal discharge is a normal part of everyday life
for most people in the possession of a vagina.
But for some reason, nobody's talking about it.
I'm Mama Doctor Jones,
a board certified OBGYN, a mom to four,
and today I'm answering your questions
about vaginal discharge.
What is it, how much is normal?
What do those colors mean?
Why does it change depending on the day?
And most importantly,
when should you be worried enough to make an appointment
and visit your doctor or advanced practice provider?
If you're new here, I would love to have you subscribe.
You don't have to, I'm more than happy
to give you the information without that,
but we talk about things like this all the time,
and I know you would like to impress your friends
with this mountain of knowledge about your vagina.
So what even is vaginal discharge and why do you have it?
The vagina is a mucous membrane, not unlike your mouth,
and the cells and mucus membranes tend to create liquids.
And this is part of keeping the vagina normal
and healthy, it's called transudate.
And it mixes with dead epithelial cells or dead skin cells,
as well as normal vaginal flora,
the happy bacteria that live up there,
and that all comes together to create vaginal discharge.
So this is a normal part of your vagina
keeping itself clean and healthy.
The vagina is a self-cleaning organ.
It doesn't need you to put anything in there to clean it,
work smarter, not harder.
Now that you know all about
vaginal discharge, why it's there,
and why it's helpful to keep your vagina healthy,
let's move on to the next question,
which is how much is actually normal?
The average vagina makes anywhere
from one to four milliliters of vaginal discharge a day,
a little bit more or a little bit less can also be normal.
However, it's probably not super helpful
for me to give you that information,
especially if you live in the United States,
where we don't use the metric system,
without actually showing you.
So let's move on to the first demonstration part
of this video in my kitchen.
Welcome to my kitchen.
I'm now going to show you visually
what one to four milliliters of fluid looks like.
For this demonstration,
I'm going to use blue Powerade.
Not because any vaginal discharge should ever be blue,
unless you're a Smurf, in which case, I wouldn't know,
I'm not a Smurf doctor.
I'm using this because it shows up better on the camera.
I have this little dropper.
(upbeat music)
That is one milliliter.
This is 4 milliliters.
I'm going to open two panty liners
and show you what that looks like on a pantyliner.
(upbeat music)
One milliliter,
four milliliters.
As you can see,
this looks drastically different on a pantyliner
than it does when I hold it up in a little cup.
The point of this is that vaginal discharge can vary widely.
Some people have a lot, some people have a little,
it changes based on where you are in your cycle,
what medicines you're on,
all kinds of other things that we're about to talk about,
but it's totally normal.
Let's go back to the office.
Welcome back, I hope that that was helpful
and that you learned something.
Let's move on to the next question,
which is what color should vaginal discharge be?
And what do all the other colors mean?
Normally vaginal discharge
is either going to be white or off white,
maybe occasionally with a little bit of a yellow hue.
Sometimes it might actually be more clear
or opaque or maybe have a transparent look.
But for the most part, a white or off white
is going to be the most common.
We're going back to the kitchen
so I can give you a little bit more information
on the different colors
that you might notice in your vaginal discharge.
Now it comes as part of this demonstration
where I'm probably going to ruin
some of your favorite breakfast foods,
but that's just a risk I'm willing to take
for you in the name of vagina education.
After many trips to the grocery store
and a lot of wracking my brain over how to do this,
what will end up probably being three minutes of footage,
I have come home with vanilla yogurt,
lemon yogurt,
this should be sponsored by Yoplait, but it's not.
Key lime yogurt,
and cottage cheese.
For this demonstration, I'm also going to need an egg,
and there's a really good chance
that this egg was laid by Uno,
the chicken that was in one of my earlier videos.
So fun fact.
So first we're going to go over
some of the normal discharge appearances.
I'm going to lay out a few panty liners
and we're going to look at them and see what we think.
(upbeat music)
So the discharge may be kind of watery and milky looking.
It can have kind of a thicker milk looking appearance.
Occasionally you might even notice a little bit
of a yellow hue, and in the absence of any other symptoms,
that can be totally normal.
Oh, smells like lemon yogurt.
Sometimes the discharge can be really watery and thin.
So all of these that you're seeing on the screen right now
are totally normal consistencies of vaginal discharge.
As you can see, it's not a one size fits all.
Sometimes at some points of your cycle it's going to vary,
and it's going to vary from person to person.
The important thing is any of these can be normal.
I hope this is actually helpful to somebody,
because I am just making a giant mess in here.
Let's talk about two other normal consistencies
that you might see,
especially if you're someone
who is not taking any kind of hormonal birth control.
At certain points of your cycle
you might notice that you have kind of a gel type discharge
or just a like really stringy egg white type discharge.
These are both totally normal
and tend to happen closer to the time of ovulation.
Let's move on to some of the abnormal consistencies.
If you notice a discharge that looks like this,
it's kind of that white that you would normally expect,
and it's kind of creamy like you would normally expect,
but it has chunks that look exactly like cottage cheese.
This is the best demo ever,
because it literally looks like this.
That can often signify a yeast infection,
especially if it's accompanied by really bad itching
or just a lot of tenderness and redness.
What about yellow?
If you have a lot of yellow discharge that looks like this,
especially if it's accompanied with other symptoms
or you have a new sex partner,
this could indicate chlamydia.
Again, a slight yellow hue can be normal
in certain situations,
but if you notice a lot of yellow discharge,
especially if it's paired with other symptoms
or risk factors for STI,
like a new partner or something like that,
then you definitely need to come in
and let us check that out. What about lime green discharge
that literally looks like key lime pie yogurt?
Lime green discharge is really never going to be normal.
So lime green discharge, whether it's thick or thin,
is something I want you to watch for,
because just like the last one,
if you're in a situation where you have a new sex partner
or you might be at risk
for a sexually transmitted infection,
that could indicate gonorrhea or trichomoniasis.
Discharge that has a thin and gray color,
which is notably very difficult to make with yogurts,
can sometimes indicate something called bacterial vaginosis.
So if you notice a grayish discharge,
that's something you definitely
want to talk to your doctor about,
especially if it's paired with any symptoms.
Are you noticing a theme here?
Symptoms plus strange discharge often means
you need to have that checked out.
And for the last of our demonstrations,
I'm going to ruin another breakfast favorite,
which is coffee.
If you notice a dark brown
or even a light brown discharge, this is often normal.
And it usually indicates spotting of some kind.
This can happen when your cycle is really light,
either at the beginning or at the end.
And a little bit of old blood
has mixed with your normal discharge,
or sometimes this can happen after intercourse,
you can just have random spotting.
Most of the time a little bit of dark brown discharge
is not something that you have to worry about.
All right, I hope that was helpful.
If not, I just wasted a bunch of my time
and also a bunch of trips to the store.
But hopefully that helps someone,
and let's go back to the office
and answer your last question.
Welcome back to my office,
I hope that I didn't ruin all your favorite breakfast foods.
Now we're going to talk about
when you should take your vagina
to the doctor or advanced practice provider.
I wanted to show you what somebody made me.
If your vagina is sick, take it to the doctor.
I love it so much.
All right, so let's answer the question.
And although normal vaginal discharge
can have a slight yellow hue to it,
or might even cause mild irritation
if it's a heavier discharge day, or you know,
it might even have a slight scent to it.
You should not notice significant color changes,
significant symptoms like burning, itching, pain,
severe irritation, pain with intercourse,
burning with urination.
Any of those symptoms are definitely not normal,
and you also shouldn't notice a significant odor
associated with your vaginal discharge.
So I tell my patients, if you notice any of these changes,
especially if it's paired with a symptom that's new
and a change in your vaginal discharge color,
you should definitely make an appointment with your doctor
or advanced practice provider to have it checked out.
If your vagina's sick, take it to a doctor.
That's why we're here.
In that last question I mentioned
that you may have some mild irritation
if you're on a particularly heavy discharge day.
So one of the most common questions that you have
is why does my discharge
sometimes change seemingly day to day?
And the answer to that is a lot of things
can affect your vaginal discharge,
anything from diet to sexual activity to medications,
vaginal medications, external lubricants.
So many things can affect your vaginal discharge,
but the most common thing that makes
your vaginal discharge change from day to day is your cycle.
The hormone levels in your body affect
what kind of vaginal discharge you have
and how much you have of it.
Sometimes right after your period
you may notice a darker color or brown hue,
that's just a little bit of leftover blood
that your body's getting rid of.
Leading up to your cycle,
you may notice that that white discharge
becomes a little bit more clear or watery
or even kind of sticky or slimy like egg yolks.
This happens when you're getting close
to the time of ovulation,
because that vaginal discharge makes sperm happier
and it helps sperm safely get through
the acidic pH of the vagina and up to the egg.
So normally your vaginal discharge is changing.
And I think that's the most important thing
to get from this video.
Your vaginal discharge can change,
but if it's associated with any weird colors
or any other symptoms, especially if these are new symptoms,
or colors that you've never experienced before,
it might be time to make an appointment
with your doctor/advanced practice provider.
Thanks for being here today y'all,
I hope that you learned something.
If you like this video, give it a thumbs up.
I will see you next Monday.
Don't forget to subscribe.
I know you like impressing your friends
with your vagina knowledge.
(upbeat music)