17 August, 2017
Respondents were asked detailed questions about their grooming habits and related injuries, including how many times they had groomed, how much hair they removed, what methods they used, and even who did the grooming. Laceration was the most common injury sustained (818 [61.2%]), followed by burn (307 [23.0%]) and rashes (163 [12.2%]).
Wednesday's JAMA Dermatology study used a web-based survey of US adults that was conducted in January 2014.
While Beyer says the new research has its limitations - not least that it was based on self-reported answers that might not have reflected the whole truth - he says people should take care to prevent blunders.
"We were, quite frankly, quite surprised how frequently people were presenting with injuries relating to grooming", said Benjamin Breyer, a urologist at the University of California, San Francisco and co-author of the study. It goes back centuries, when it was looked upon favorably in terms of sex and hygiene, according to a 2014 study in the journal Basic and Clinical Sciences. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This cross-sectional study conducted a national survey of noninstitutionalized United States adults (aged 18-65 years).
But one serious danger of grooming your pubic hair is that an open wound might increase your risk of getting a sexually transmitted disease, Breyer added.
Gaither and his colleagues surveyed 7,456 adults between the ages of 18 and 65.
Results showed that 5,674 participants reported that they had, at some point, groomed their pubic hair. And just to clarify, the majority of the injuries occurred in the pubic area - the scrotum for men and pubis for women. Razors and electric razors were the tools most commonly used, followed by scissors, wax and electrolysis and/or laser hair removal. About 94 percent of the people who groomed said they did it themselves. Results showed that 27 percent of women and nearly 24 percent of men cut themselves while shaving and 1.4 percent needed medical attention for their injuries. Slightly more than 1 percent of the injuries required medical attention, the researchers said. A further 23 percent of the reported injuries were due to burns that could be caused by waxing. Injuries were more common among women (27 percent) than men (24 percent).
About 26% of men and women who groom their pubic hair have been injured at least once, according to a JAMA Dermatology study published Wednesday. Men who removed all hair more than 11 times in their lives were almost twice as likely to injure themselves over their lifetimes as men who didn't remove all their pubic hair.
In other words, for both men and women, the frequency of grooming and the amount of hair removed were linked to a person's risk of injury. This is self-explanatory he said, since persons who would remove hair from all the "nooks and crannies" were more likely to get injured during the process. In women, the mons pubis (located above the vulva) was the most common site of injury, reported by 51 percent of injured women, followed by the inner thigh (45 percent), the vagina (43 percent), the area between the vagina and anus (13 percent) and the anus (6 percent). But they found that more than 60% of the injuries were related to cuts, so it makes sense that using razors could be unsafe for some people.
