Loose Vagina: what causes this and how to tighten it up

Vagina, the birth canal, is the female genital organ characterized by fibrous elastic muscles. It is a muscular organ with an outer opening covered by a membrane called hymen. The muscular tone of the vagina is often linked with the sexual pleasure and satisfaction felt during an intercourse. It is commonly thought that a loose vagina is less satisfying than a tighter, firm vagina that holds the penis firmly during sexual activity. Improving the overall tone, hygiene, and rejuvenating the vaginal muscles, together is known as vaginal tightening. 

Truth be told, the vaginal muscles do not actually lose their elasticity permanently. The vaginal muscles may just lack the firm tone for a while, but certain treatment options can help regain the normal vaginal tone. Just like any other muscle in the body, it can be toned with exercise and loses tone without exercise.

Similarly, excessive tightness of the vaginal muscles can also pose a problem. There are many women who feel that their vagina is too tight. The tightness can be easily taken care of by some simple techniques. Tightness can be due to incomplete arousal or sometimes, because of the fear of penetration, in which, it is purely psychological. However, certain surgeries can lead to tightness. Involuntary muscular contractions of the vagina can also make you experience vaginal tightness. Excessive tightness can lead to problems such as pain during sex. Simple lubrication by application of lubrication jelly can help in relieving more than normal vaginal tightness. Sometimes, a congenital disability can lead to a tighter vagina, but the condition is curable. Thus, the tussle between whether a tighter vagina gives more pleasure, or the pleasure is less if you have a loose vagina should not keep you from deriving sexual satisfaction. 

It is a common misconception that a wide vagina, lack of tone, or loss of firmness can affect sexual pleasure. There is a common fear that the vaginal firmness will be lost forever. Though laxity may be experienced by some women, it is a reversible condition. 

How do you sense that you are experiencing vaginal laxity? The signs discussed below can act as clear indicators of vaginal laxity:

• Lack of Friction
  A firm or tight vagina will hold the penis during intercourse and this friction will give you the desirable high that makes the intercourse pleasurable. However, lack of this friction can be a sign of vaginal laxity.
• Urgency to Urinate
  Basically, vaginal laxity is linked with the abnormal functioning of pelvic muscles. If you are passing urine very often, even while coughing or sneezing, then you need to tone up your pelvic muscles. This is another sign of your vagina being loose.
• Pelvic Pain
  Sometimes, the pain in the pelvic area due to the weakening of the pelvic muscles can also be a sign of looseness in the vagina.

Vaginal laxity or looseness can be overcome by a number of different rejuvenation techniques. Each one of us is born with a typical muscle tone in all our body muscles. Regular exercises can help improve muscle tone for a particular muscle. Similarly, all women are also born with an inborn elasticity of the vaginal muscles, which helps in getting a firm grip of the penis during penetration. Your vagina undergoes a number of changes during your entire lifetime. Major milestones in a woman’s life like childbirth and menopause lead to a number of physiological changes in the female reproductive system. Hormonal imbalance or changes and ageing are also remarkable factors that contribute to vaginal laxity. Let’s dig in deeper into the causes of vaginal laxity.

• Childbirth
  Your vagina is made of elastic muscles which expand and contract during sexual activity. Similarly, during a vaginal delivery, the muscles expand and grow to accommodate the baby. After childbirth, the muscles take some time to get back to their normal tightness and tone. Thus, they lose the original firmness they had before you gave birth to the child. During childbirth, there are a number of factors that will decide how much vaginal laxity you will experience. Some of these factors include:
  • Genetic factor 
    Genetically your vagina is such that stretching during childbirth can make it lose its tone.
  • Size of the infant 
    If you deliver a high weight baby, then the efforts required to push ahead and the heavy pressure on the pelvic muscles can affect your vaginal firmness negatively.
  • Use of vacuum or forceps during delivery 
    The circumstances during delivery can also cause changes in your vaginal muscles. Use of vacuum and forceps can change the original tone of vagina making it loose.
  • The number of deliveries 
    More the number of deliveries, higher the vaginal laxity. Also, with every delivery, the vagina becomes less firm each time. 
• Hormonal Changes
  There aren’t any significant changes in your vagina from puberty to childbirth, however, menopause is a stage where there are a number of hormonal changes in your body. These changes lead to fluctuations in the hormones and leave the vaginal skin wrinkled and lose its elasticity. Loss of oestrogen reduces the lubrication of the vagina and leads to loss of firmness of the skin near the vagina.
• Ageing
  Ageing affects all your muscles, not just the vaginal and you may feel the laxity in the vaginal muscles due to loss of muscular tone. Ageing can lead to wrinkling of the vaginal area due to the loss of collagen protein that occurs as a part of skin ageing. Due to the loss of protein, the tightness of the skin reduces significantly. This is the same as the reason why you experience facial wrinkles.
• Medical Conditions and Surgeries
  You may experience vaginal laxity due to repeated surgeries of the pelvis, which can leave your vaginal and pelvic floor muscles weak and loose. Similarly, certain medications which interfere the hormonal balance can also lead to vaginal laxity.

There are different ways in which the tightening of the vagina can be achieved. They generally range from simple exercises to surgery. Let us have a look at the various options available for tightening the vagina.

• Kegel Exercises
  Exercises of the pelvic muscles are commonly recommended by doctors to women who have given childbirth by the normal vaginal route. These exercises tone the pelvic muscle floor, thereby improving the strength of the pelvic muscles. However, there is no clinical evidence that Kegel exercises or pelvic floor training can improve the vaginal tightness. These exercises can definitely relieve the symptoms of leakage of urine during coughing and sneezing, which you may experience as a sign of looseness of the pelvic muscles.
• Radiofrequency (RF) Treatment
  The electromagnetic waves emitted by RF devices generate heat and can help in revitalizing the tissues and restoring the elasticity and firmness of the vagina. The best part of the treatment is that there is no need for anaesthesia and the treatment time is very short.
• Laser-based Treatment
  It is a safe method, commonly used in dermatology. Carbon dioxide (CO2)-based or erbium:yttrium-aluminum-garnet (Er:YAG) lasers have become a new trend in vaginal rejuvenation. These laser beams are non-invasive and tighten the vaginal muscles as they restore their elasticity and moisture.
• Surgical Interventions
  Vaginal rejuvenation is a new concept and involves a series of cosmetic surgical interventions. Gynaecologists and plastic surgeons would perform a series of surgeries on your vagina if you have been experiencing a wide vagina and loss of friction during sex or after childbirth. Vaginal tightening is also a part of vaginal rejuvenation. Following are some of the surgical techniques practised by surgeons for tightening of the vagina.
  • Traction of vaginal wall flap Bulbo Cavernosus Muscle (BCM)
    A surgery involving the posterior vaginal wall flap and BCM leads to proper contraction of the BCM and the pelvic floor muscles during penetration. Since BCM is also called specific sexual pleasure muscle, providing traction to this muscle has shown positive results in tightening the vagina and enhancing sexual pleasure.
  • Labiaplasty
    It is a surgical procedure to get rid of the excess skin of the labia and can be sometimes done to tighten the vagina. Generally, if you have extended labia or are feeling so after childbirth, then you are a perfect candidate to undergo this surgery.
  • Colpoperineoplasty
    The procedure includes decreasing the diameter of the vagina by putting paravaginal stitches on the anterior or frontal part and then carrying out dissection or cutting of the tissues. Analysis of the feedback received from these women postoperatively proved the success of the method.
  • Vaginal rugation restoration
    Due to age or menopause, if you have a very smooth vagina that makes you miss the penile sensation during coitus, then rugation of the vagina can be done using laser so as to rejuvenate it.
  • Vulvovaginal injections
    Filling of the vulvovaginal area with hyaluronic acid and platelet-rich plasma in the form of subcutaneous injection can help to restore the vaginal tone.
  • Insertion of biocompatible material
    This novel procedure involves making an incision in the vaginal walls and filling biocompatible material composed of expanded poly-tetrafluoroethylene (ePTEE) into it. The procedure can be carried under local anaesthesia and can help in restoring the vaginal strength and tightness.
• Counselling
  We have discussed a wide array of non-invasive, as well as, invasive methods to correct the looseness of the vagina and help restore your normal vaginal tone. However, it is always better to accept your body as it is rather than opting for any kind of medical interventions whenever possible. Proper counselling sessions with your sexologist and psychologist would prove beneficial. 
• Natural ways to tighten the vagina
  Topical or local application of Oak gall extract has shown good results in vaginal tightening due to its astringent action that leads to vaginal constriction. However, clinical evidence is lacking to confirm the same.
  Heed caution before you go for such procedures though. Talk to your partner, your gynaecologist, get some psychological counselling, try out simple exercises and strengthen your muscles with daily yoga and pelvic exercises before opting for any surgical intervention. Stay beautiful from inside, remember a tight vagina could be more problematic than a loose vagina and merely having a loose vagina cannot deprive you of the sexual pleasure.