Adding soft spices like vanilla beans

I'd like to add spices to my blueberry mead since it just went into secondary the other day. I've read a few things about boiling harder spices like cloves and cinnamon in hot water for a few minutes, but I worry that doing this for softer spices like a vanilla bean pod might lose a lot of flavor.

Can I just chuck the split pod in there if active fermentation is happening? Or should I try to hot water "sterilize" all the spices before adding. Thanks in advance!