Like any social network, Tik Tok can be used for good or for bad. It can serve as a mere entertainment or to spread information. And this is where the dichotomy begins, since it can be useful and informative information on a specific topic, but also some hoax or false data. If the person who receives it is well informed about the subject in question, they can distinguish one case from another, but it is not always so easy. For this reason, after a publication in which he warns of the need to change underwear at most every nine months, he spread the confusion. After all, who will throw away their favorite panties in less than a year if they are still in good condition, with bulging elastic bands and no holes?
However, we should not worry, as other experts on the subject have been responsible for ensuring that, with proper hygiene, this is not necessary. You don't have to refresh your underwear drawer every nine months. Of course, change the one you wear daily.
Your underwear just needs a washing machine
The claim of these statements on Tik Tok was based on the fact that women's underwear can accumulate microbes for different reasons. On the one hand, by sweat. On the other, by vaginal secretions. And, finally, by the release of dead skin cells. All of this could build up and lead to infections, even if washed off. That's what she says. But it's true?
As Jennifer Gunter, the gynecologist and author of the famous Bible of the Vagina, has explained on her social networks, this is not something that should worry us, as long as we wash it correctly. In addition, in statements to IFLScience, she explained that, in general, the people who make these types of claims are usually sellers of underwear or vaginal cleansers, who are interested in generating this idea.
Perhaps in ancient times, when clothes were washed by hand, it was more difficult to correctly eliminate microorganisms. Nowadays, the mechanical cleaning provided by the washing machine is much more exhaustive. In addition, you can play with factors such as the increase in temperature.
What should we do then?
In 2020, three scientists from South Korea carried out a study aimed at analyzing the survival of certain bacteria after passing through the washing machine.
They used cotton fabrics contaminated with three pathogenic bacteria, called Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus, and two non-pathogenic bacteria, specifically Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli.
It should be noted that these are not the typical bacteria of the vaginal microbiota, where beneficial microbes coexist, as long as they are maintained at adequate levels. However, it can serve as an example to check if the microorganisms that could proliferate from the secretions mentioned above could be eliminated with the washes.
In the study they found that most are eliminated with great efficiency. Only A. baumannii and S. aureus were found to be somewhat more resistant after an 8-hour exposure to cotton, but these would hardly be found in the underwear of a healthy person. The rest had survival rates of less than 0.5%.
Furthermore, if active oxygen-based disinfectants were used, they were all eradicated at temperatures below 40ºC. If not, it was necessary to go up to 60ºC.
These can be two useful tricks to eliminate practically any microbe that can proliferate in our underwear. But, equally, as Dr. Gunter explains, there should be no panic. Even if some survive a normal washing machine cycle, at any temperature, the numbers will be minimal and will not cause infection.
This, therefore, is not a factor that should concern us if we want to avoid getting sick. Other factors are more worrying, such as the use of tight underwear or fabrics that do not breathe properly. In these cases, sweating could increase and this excess humidity would facilitate the proliferation of microbes, such as the fungus that causes candidiasis.
Therefore, gynecologists recommend resorting to the use of cotton underwear. And that's it. People with a vagina should not worry about that ecosystem that lives in their genitals. And it is that, in the same way as the intestinal or skin microbiota, it is there for our benefit. Not to get us in trouble. So no, your underwear does not have an expiration date. Even those whitish spots that stay on her sometimes are totally normal. Change it if it has holes, if the elastics are already too stretched or, simply, if you feel like it. But not for fear of contracting an infection.
