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Hello Aunt Vadge,
I’ve had recurrent BV since my daughter’s birth a year ago – yellow/green discharge (lots of it, especially when I relax my pelvic floor) and occasional itch. I’m breastfeeding, though my cycle returned at 4 months postpartum, so there’s lots of hormone fluctuation.
I use boric acid to offset symptoms and have taken an oral probiotic for a month. A swab showed Gardnerella vaginalis and Group B Strep (I was GBS negative in pregnancy). I skipped the antibiotic, assuming a biofilm, and instead diluted my oral probiotic in water and inserted it for a few days – this helped a lot, but after sex it comes straight back.
Can I keep doing this? Is there a stronger probiotic suppository? I’m desperate for long-term relief.
Sincerely,
Suffering
Age 24, Texas, USA
Dear Suffering,
You’ve actually worked most of this out yourself. So the piece that ties it together – and changes the whole strategy – is this: the reason nothing holds isn’t that you need a stronger probiotic, it’s your oestrogen.
While you’re breastfeeding, high prolactin keeps your oestrogen low, and oestrogen is what tells your vaginal cells to make glycogen – the only food your protective lactobacilli eat.
Low oestrogen means low glycogen, starving lactobacilli, and the door swings open for G. vaginalis and GBS – which is your yellow-green discharge (leaning more aerobic vaginitis and GBS than classic BV, by the way). Top up the good bacteria all you like, but if the cupboard’s bare they can’t stay.
So the actual plan has three parts.
First and most-missed, rebuild the foundation – the oestrogen piece: talk to your doctor about a low-dose local (vaginal) oestrogen, which acts right where you need it, has very little systemic absorption, and is generally considered compatible with breastfeeding; it rebuilds glycogen and gives your lactobacilli somewhere to live, and you can lean on phytoestrogen-rich foods alongside as food-as-medicine.
The honest truth is this part eases as you wean, but you don’t have to just wait it out.
Second, keep topping up the good bacteria properly – your DIY probiotic idea is sound, but never mix it with tap water, because the chlorine is literally designed to kill bacteria; use cooled, boiled or filtered water, and a vagina-specific Lactobacillus probiotic is safe in breastfeeding.
Third, manage the sex trigger, because sex reliably tips a fragile, low-oestrogen environment back over – condoms for now, weeing afterwards, and going gently all really help while you rebuild. On the boric acid, you’ve used it well, but it’s a management tool, not a cure: it buys symptom relief without fixing the underlying oestrogen story.
Our free Killing BV while breastfeeding guide walks through the safe specifics. And you can order a comprehensive microbiome test yourself (no doctor needed) to see exactly what’s there – and if you’d like it tailored, you can book an appointment with one of our practitioners. But you’re already doing the smart things; you just needed the oestrogen piece. Hang in there with that little one.
Lots of love,
Aunt Vadge
This is general information based on current research and our clinical experience, not a substitute for personalised medical advice.
