Yoni steaming is an ancient practice of allowing an herbal steam to permeate the tissues of the vagina and womb. You can do this by either sitting over or kneeling over a pot of steaming steeped herbal water. You can find traces of yoni steaming back throughout all cultures worldwide. Time and time again, individuals with uteruses and vaginas have used steaming as a way to connect with their wombs and their cycles and find healing.
Why Yoni Steaming?
Yoni is the Sanskrit word for vagina or vulva, so it most literally is translated as vaginal steaming. There are countless reasons why someone might choose to steam. Still, some of the more commonly listed reasons include:
- Regulating one's menstrual cycle and monthly bleeding
- PMS symptom relief
- Reducing pain with sexual intercourse
- Relief for itchiness, fibroids, and cysts
- Healing endometriosis
- Supporting fertility
- Labor preparation
- Postpartum cleansing and healing
- Supporting menopause and the transition to menopause
- Healing from trauma
- Hormone balance
- Balance for infections and balances vaginal pH.
How to Safely Use Yoni Steam
The safest and best way to use yoni steam for pregnancy and postpartum is to find facilitators who have studied and learned the safest ways to encourage steaming during these sacred times. Typically, the only safe way to steam during pregnancy is after 37 weeks or once the baby is at term. This is because steaming can induce labor into action, so we want pregnant individuals to be at term before starting. For the most part, yoni steaming during the end of pregnancy helps with circulation, relaxation, and lubrication of the tissues.
How Yoni Steaming Helps Labor
If there is a dryness problem at the end of pregnancy, it can stall labor. Signs of dryness at the end of pregnancy are dry lips and skin and hard stools. You can support lubrication through the foods and drinks you consume, but you can also encourage it through yoni steaming.
Circulation is an important part of labor preparation and can be encouraged with spicy foods, cardio, massage, warm baths and showers, sex, and, of course, yoni steaming. Sometimes, getting enough circulation going can actually induce labor.
Lastly, relaxation allows the body to truly release and let go. You can find relaxation through journaling, self-care, meditation, shaking your limbs, sleep, and yoni steaming. When I Yoni steam, I find that the relaxation it provides helps ease into a more leisurely night's rest, which all pregnant individuals need.
Will Yoni Steaming Induce Labor?
I always tell clients that yoni steaming alone will not induce labor if the pregnant person and baby are not ready for labor to begin, but if the body is at a tipping point, sometimes it can be what pushes it over the edge.
There have been many moments when clients of mine, including myself, steamed during labor as well, and there are similar powerful benefits of yoni steaming while laboring. That circulation, relaxation, and lubrication combination really works well together and can encourage stronger contractions, help with dilation and softening of the cervix, and even prevent tearing in some cases.
Yoni Steaming for Postpartum Relief
Another great way to utilize yoni steaming during the childbearing years is steaming postpartum. Depending on the steam facilitator and what they have been taught, you can either start steaming as soon as four days postpartum or once your sutures have healed. Yoni steaming postpartum can help to clear out any stagnant blood and tissues, promote vaginal healing, shrink hemorrhoids, lighten the bleeding, and promote relaxation.
For my last pregnancy, I did postpartum yoni steaming and enjoyed how it provided me with time set aside just for myself, even if it was only ten minutes a day. It aided my recovery time and gave me a sense of peace and relaxation.
Herbs to Use for Steaming
Some of the most commonly used herbs for yoni steaming include Nettles, Astragalus, Lavender, Lemon Peel, Mugwort, Motherwort, Red Raspberry Leaf, Yarrow, Red Clover, and more. It is important that when choosing herbs to use for your steaming treatment, you, or the person you have hired, understand how these herbs work at their core and how they might affect the body both in pregnancy, postpartum, and beyond. Herbs can be powerful tools if we use them correctly, but like any medicine, they can equally cause harm when misused.
How to Yoni Steam
When yoni steaming, I encourage using a stainless-steel pot with no anti-stick and nothing with plastic or chemicals. You can then use a steaming stool or go into a child's pose over the hot steam. If you are good with extra heat, putting a blanket over your body to absorb the heat better can feel nice. For most steaming, it takes 10-30 minutes, depending on the time of pregnancy and how your body responds to excess heat, which is the perfect amount of time. It really does not take a large portion of your time to do this simple self-care practice that can aid and assist childbirth, healing postpartum, and a myriad of other ailments.
Something powerful occurs when we connect with our ancestors and their ancient wisdom and practices. For me, yoni steaming was an excellent reconnection tool to reconnect to where I came from and those who came before me. It is also a wonderful tool for healing traumas and pains that we have experienced. Our bodies hold onto traumas, and yoni steaming can be a helpful tool for releasing them. To this day, I still yoni steam every week, if not multiple times every week. It is incredible what some herbal steam can do for the body, often in ways we never imagined.
