By JoNel Aleccia
NBC News
NEW YORK — Whether it’s a DIY Brazilian wax or a botched attempt at “manscaping,” homegrown efforts to remove the hair down there are sending more people to emergency rooms, new research suggests.
Pubic hair grooming injuries jumped five-fold between 2002 and 2010, according to a recent analysis of ER visits by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco. The cringe-inducing reports increased most at the end of the time frame, with an estimated 2,500 grooming mishaps a year by 2010. And those are just the cuts, burns, gashes, rashes and other unpleasant outcomes that required emergency medical attention, said Dr. Allison Glass, a clinical researcher at UCSF. Those figures are likely a vast underestimate of the true injuries, and a reminder, among other things, of the need for extra care when wielding razors or hot wax.
“We actually found that 3 percent of all genitourinary injuries were related to grooming practices,” said Glass. “I think the message is this is something that general practitioners and urologists should be aware of.”
Full story: Ow! Pubic hair grooming injuries on the rise, researchers find