retroverted uterus

Dear Youngmommy,

We all have a retrodisplaced uterus. Retroversion describes the

I do wonder though, if maybe some of us WERE born with problems. I'm thinking of the studies showing how the american diet causes us north americans to have narrow jaws and crowded teeth. The mother's poor diet causes the jaw and teeth to be all messed up. We all have generations of poor diets in our ancestry and if it can mess up teeth, why not organs too? I believe I may have been born with cystocele. I do not remember a time in my life where I didn't have problems with leaking - even as a very young child. I remember being treated for my first bladder infection at 3 years old and had chronic bladder infections all growing up - which actually improved when I hit adulthood.

I have to wonder why prolapses seem to be isolated to a select group. For instance, my mother has horrible posture and no lumbar curve at all. She had 6 vaginal births, all laying on her back. She has never had any prolapse problems at all. I don't believe in hystorectomy, but I personally know several women who say it was the best thing they ever did, and they have not had any prolapse problems. There seems to be something, I don't know what, but something seems to pre-dispose a certain group of us to prolapse and perhaps it does have something to do with being born that way, with having had mothers who had poor diets, and thier mothers had poor diets, and thier mothers.... Which isn't to say that I don't believe it can be helped. I have overcome endometriosis - which is supposedly incurable, so why not "incurable" prolapse. Having this theory isn't really helpful to me at all, but perhaps I can prevent it from happening to my babies.

Monica

So true, Monica...I've talked about the work of Kathleen Vaughan (I've been trying to find her book, Safe Childbirth for years!) who was up in arms during the 1930's because she could see taking place just what you are describing. Even the pelvic surgeons took her seriously, but no one did a darn thing to advance her work and improve the nutrition of our country. The famous dentist, Weston Price, saw during that same time period that crowded teeth and misshapen jaws are strictly maladies of civilization. His work reads a bit on the racist side today, but he was deeply concerned that the "caucasian" world was going to eventually weaken and disappear. We see now, however, that it is all people who adopt modern food and lifestyles.

Genetics are very deep and stable laws though, and I think it is still very possible to turn this around and once again improve the birth status of women.

Even if there weren't a huge percentage of cesareanized and hysterectomized women who go on to develop subsequent problems, it just seems wrong to have something so basic as birth and women's health be solely in the hands of surgeons.

These are very difficult issues and ones we may not solve for ourselves, but we can at least vastly improve our comfort and work for the health of future generations.

Christine

...to continue a bit...

Kathleen Vaughan knew it was the shape of the pelvis that was changing, which was in turn causing problems with birth. Just like with jaws, it is the bony structure underneath that is responsible for the placement of the "organs", or teeth.

In the very few years following Vaughan's work, a couple of obstetricians mapped the four different pelvic shapes thought to exist amongst women. To my knowledge, this theory of pelvic shape got pretty much set in stone and it's now assumed that these four shapes are and have always been in existence. Who knows how accurate they really were??? This is not only an amazingly interesting thing to study, but only vastly important to the continuation of the human race! You'd think that it would be one of the most funded scientific pursuits on the planet!

Anyway, where do we begin to change this circle of disease and dysfunction? I believe the best place to begin is with our own bodies, no matter if we were born with a weak skeleton or not. If this is just not possible and we simply cannot get prolapse under control, then we have surgical options, hopelessly inadequate as they are.

But for God's sake, let us get this information to every woman and girl so that they can see the problem in its entirety and have the option of charting a better course for their own offspring.

C.

Youngmommy,

1) probably so

2) absolutely!

I have a retroverted uterus too. My ob/gyn mentioned this at my last appointment last summer, about a year after my last baby was born, but I didn't think anything of it then. Then I noticed my prolapse a few months later. I'm sure that having your uterus tilted backwards predisposes it to also begin its descent downward. But I have had wonderful success with the posture and exercise! Hang in there!

Julie

Hi all

Just dragging this old Topic back again. Had an idea. Nobody seems to particularly like having a retroverted uterus, either because of pain and discomfort or its anecdotal association with infertility, or just because it 'seems' to set the uterus up for descent straight down the vagina.

How about this page about retroverted uterus ? Scroll down to the bit about the Hodge pessary. I wonder if use of a Hodge pessary *plus* WW posture could correct retroversion, gradually and gently tipping the uterus over, as it shifted intestines out of the way.

Apparently, correction of retroversion by surgical ventrosuspension has been used but often does not result in acheivement of pregnancy. I don't think I would be too keen to have a ventrosuspension, full stop, but having experienced infertility, and having a retroverted uterus at the time, I probably would have jumped at it, so great was my respect for my Ob at the time. Fortunately it was never offered, and was not needed in the end. :-)

My retroverted uterus corrected itself 2 or 3 years ago, but I suspect that was because prolapse enabled the top of my vagina to move (to behind the cervix, rather than in front of it, allowing the top of the uterus to flip over), rather than the top of the uterus having to flip over the top of the vagina. I am pretty sure that Wholewoman posture would have aided this retroversion. I wonder if it would aid anteversion when used with a Hodge pessary.

Has anyone ever used a Hodge pessary? This pageis what it looks, and why your doctor would choose it. I would be interested to know, regardless of whether or not you had retroverted uterus at the time.

Cheers

Louise

Hi All

When I started looking for stuff about retroverted uterus, miscarriage came up as a possible result, along with all the things about pain with intercourse, difficulty with conception and painful periods etc. The Hodge pessary is prescribed for various types of prolapse and urinary incontinence, also prescribed for Incompetent Cervix (see my previous post). I am assuming that the cervix would go down into the space in the middle and kind of be squashed closed in the space between the two sides of the pessary.

I get the feeling that doctors see retroverted uterus as being abnormal (only 20% of women seems to be the figure) but beyond that they don't seem to agree that the tetroversion has any implications at all, other than being associated with POP, but there does seem to be some agreement that they don't know whether the position of the uterus is significant at all, or whether the retroversion causes the difficulty with conception, or whether the difficulty is caused by something else, perhaps something that is associated with the retroversion as well. Really, they haven't a clue!

If the woman has a retroverted uterus, that retroversion is thus blamed when no other cause can be found, in spite of the fact that I could find no references to *why or how* retroversion might cause difficulty to conceive, or early miscarriage. Nowhere, of course, is bad posture mentioned as a possible cause or improvement of posture mentioned as a means of prevention or a possible agent of correction. I think retroverted uterus might be the same kind of whipping boy (or girl!) as autoimmune dysfunction, a technical reason which seems plausible, and is not disproven, therefore is an acceptable reason, whether it is ultimately true or not.

I figure that when a uterus becomes or develops as (which I doubt, but that's what they say) retroverted, something needs to happen or be present for the fundus to tip over backwards and kind of twist the broad ligament that it is suspended in, along with the ovaries and fallopian tubes. Something powerful and chronic, like constipation or badly slouched posture, perhaps?

Try this. Hold a teatowel by both ends at waist height. Your head is the cervix and the teatowel is the fundus. Now bend your arms and put the teatowel backwards over your head until it is behind your back. Your arms (the broad ligament) are now each twisted outwards by half a turn. The broad ligament is kind of planar, not linear, so IMO, this twisting could feasibly interfere with the fallopian tubes and the ovaries which are suspended in it, and their blood and nerve supplies. The round ligament, which we think anchors the uterus forwards, would be stretched, and might push the bladder backwards as it tries to adopt the easiest stretch between pubic and labial attachment at one end, and fundus at the other end, over the top of the vagina. Now try and get the teatowel back over your head to the front again. Quite a job, eh? If you loosen the tension in the ligament by bending your elbows, or lowering your head (prolapsing the cervix down lower into the vagina), it is easier to antevert it again.

Maybe we could 'jiggle' it back over, or use nauli or firebreathing to get it back over, or some sort of vertical forwards stomach circling isolation - bellydancers, you will know what I mean by this; especially if you reinforce this with a Hodge pessary as a splint to prevent its easy return? I imagine it would not hold in its new anterverted position until all the intestines that have moved into the wrong places could be encouraged to get out of the way and stay there, maybe several weeks or months?

I am in no doubt that my POP symptoms are much less now my uterus has flipped to anterverted and shrunk with menopause!

That might be how retroverted uterus plays a role in POP.

Retroverted uterus implicated in miscarriage? Cervix pointing straight down or up the vagina, rather than having the head-on support of the anterior vaginal wall to keep the mucous plug in place and support the cervix and keep it short, fat and strongly closed? (Try making a circle of some stretchy kneeded dough, in the shape of a nice fat donut with a hole. Now put it between your palms and squeeze gently, then have a look at it. I think you will find that the hole is now smaller! Now apply more pressure than before and the ring will flatten and eventually get very thin, so it is no longer strong and resilient. It is now flat, flabby, stretched and 'incompetent'. It could be excacerbated by compression of the uterus down the vagina by the round ligament stretched over the uterus? There must be some weird intraabdominal forces at work when a uterus in retroverted! (Loony idea, Aza?)

Why is there never a medical cadaver in the fridge when you need one?

Enough from me. I am beginning to think I am stretching reality.

Louise

I was mesmerised reading this post and then the next thing I know I am holding a soggy teatowel in both hands and straining my shoulders to make my arms do the fallopian tube twist. I can't say that I follow your reasoning (cervix above fundus? huh?) but in regards to the last part....retroversion and the connection to miscarriage...I would just say that the human body has a breathtaking ability for compensation. I think I have mentioned before that I have come to believe that the body wants to function more than it wants to be in balance. Balance, homeostasis, etc is ideal, for sure, but in reality it seems to simply want to function and sometimes that functioning comes in less than ideal packaging. Reading old posts about the post hysterectomy posture and broadening of the hips, flattening of the lumbar, hunching of the upper thoracic....this is for function of a body, not for regaining a lost ideal.

Ahem. So my point is...anecdotally, there ain't no problem conceiving with a retroverted uterus. I have come to see POP in the same vein as optimal fetal positioning. Optimal organ positioning. They are virtually identical. And just as a malpositioned baby will almost always come out of a vagina given enough time and support and tools, a retroverted uterus will still allow hordes of sperm access to the hope diamond of the egg. Of course there are some weird abdominal forces at work, but these are nothing compared to the forces of conception and gestation and birth. The body compensates and readjusts what ever is needed for the end goal.

Having said all this, I think it is very clear to most people who have found their way to these forums that many people in healthcare have very little idea of the reality of prolapse or how the pelvis actually functions. I am quite sure that there are patterns with retroversion that I simply have not noticed or recognised through the years because I have not known to look. Perhaps i will re-bump this thread in another few years and see where we all stand then.

Hi Aza

Yes, the body is truly awesome, the way it will function, if less than optimally. However, if it is working suboptimally or in an unbalanced way, why leave it that way, if by putting it right you prevent damage, and enable better function? Sure, there is no problem conceiving with retroverted uterus, most of the time, but if that can be optimised it might enable a couple to conceive naturally, and not have to enter the nightmare world of assisted conception and pregnancy. It might save one family from the darkness that is infertility. It might enable a woman to live her menstrual cycles, free from debilitating cramp pain, and lower back discomfort and pain. It might mean less drugs are consumed, and less household income spent on fruitless quests for an answer to pain, and less ratty Mums, sisters and wives.

The point I was making was that it is entirely probable that WW posture has implications for all sorts of whole body/person/marriage wellbeing, not just POP. Improve the posture, and the clothing and the environment and the food and the physical fitness and you improve the whole person, not just the POPs. It has to lead to better overall health and acheivement of human potential.

Perhaps women can not only lessen their POP symptoms but right their retroverted uterus, and fix their gap down the middle of their abs, and their crook back and their stiff shoulders, fall pregnant easier, birth better, age better, resolve their constipation, maybe prevent osteoporosis-related spinal fratures etc, etc. Maybe men can use it too for similar human conditions and the special posture responsive male problems like umblical hernia, perhaps inguinal hernia, strained back muscles, haaemmoroids, etc.

But first the world needs to understand it.

ps, the cervix is higher than the fundus if the uterus is fallen backwards and is upside down, jammed in underneath the sacrum, on top of the rectum, or between the rectum and the vagina, trying to separate the rectovaginal septum, with the cervix pointing straight upwards.

DISCLAIMER: This may be the ravings of the non-anatomically trained mind. Sorry, I can't help it.

Cheers

L

I remember reading in a previous post someone saying that they sure as heck wished they had not been told through the years that the retroverted uterus is simply a variation of normal, that someone would have been clued in enough to explain that though this is true - to an extent - there are also potentially far reaching implications and it certainly would be a good idea to work towards flopping it forward. I totally took this on and have had some conversations with women with retroverted uteri that sound very different than the ones I was having 6 months ago! However, I think that for so many years, virtually *everything* in one way or another has been deemed a pathology in the female body. I saw a coffee cup once that said something to the effect of 'You are too young, too old, too fat, too thin, you gestate too long, too short, your pelvis is too narrow or too broad, your baby is too big or too small' you get the drift. Most days I spend hours with women normalising their bodies and abilities due to the messages of faulty building that they have taken on board. So this is a long winded way of saying that I totally agree with what you are saying and will try to refrain my knee jerk reactions in the future :) When I am a little more awake I will revisit the teatowel experiment. And Lu, you have a better concept of anatomy than most formally trained minds out there, by far.

Yes, pathologising variations of normal is a probably a sad result of measuring too many things, but when those variations cause (perhaps) unnecessary suffering, perhaps it is time to not regard them as variations of normal, but as problems to be solved. Trouble is that if you don't have a way of 'fixing' them, it doesn't matter whether you pathologise them or not, they still cause problems that would be better solved.

Just cos there is a percentage of babies born with spina bifida doesn't mean that we should accept that, especially if it can largely be prevented by simply ensuring that their potiential mothers get enough folic acid?

I can see that you respond in the best way you can to a woman with an 'unbalanced' body with a foetus in breech presentation, that needs to be born in as optimum manner as possible. You don't deal only with women who have been optimally fed, optimally cared for and optimally pampered. You deal with real Mums and and real babies, and life is sometimes messy. For that I take my hat off to you. They ae very fortunate Mums and babies to have you there.

On with the quest.

Louise