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Laurence Meyer, MD, MSc; Catherine Brouselle, MD
Hôpital de Bicêtre Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France

Catherine Soulat, MD; Isabelle Gros, MSc
Hôpital Louis-Mourier Colombes, France

JAMA. 1991;265(20):2670.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

We were very interested by the results of Chow et al¹ showing that douching is a risk factor for ectopic pregnancy. We were surprised by the high (30%) percentage of douching among the mostly Hispanic control group. We conducted a study² in a suburb of Paris, France, among 677 women who came for contraception or abortion, to assess the prevalence of different genital infections. Part of the questionnaire was devoted to vaginal hygiene behavior. Thirty-two percent of women practiced vaginal washing; less than 1% practiced actual douching, by means of a syringe.

Vaginal washing appeared less frequent among French women (24%) than among those from North Africa (55%) or from black Africa (71%). The frequency differed with nationality (respectively, 36%, 43%, and 74% of French, North Africans, and black Africans who practiced vaginal washing did it at least daily). Women used water in 57% of . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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