nauli questions for alemama

I sometimes do it on my back so that I can feel around inside to see how it is going.....I think it works just as well this way- you may want to put a small pillow under your lumbar curve.
No back ache for me- I know if I over do it because my ribs get sore- I could see a sore lower back though- just so you feel muscle soreness and it isn't your kidneys or something crazy.
I can do it sitting in a car, standing up, bending over, on my knees, basically any position-but I can only get the rolls going if I am standing with my hands on my knees-

Alemama and granolamom,

Sheepishly, I report that I have just seriously tried to Nauli – for the first time. I attempted it – I think once – and arrogantly decided it wasn’t for me.

I just got out of the bath, applied Peri Balm, pushed my cervix up, and Naulied counterclockwise in the firebreathing position. My cervix is nowhere to be found.

I will caution – and we will know these details in time – that the position you Nauli in probably makes a difference. It seems very probable that there is a big difference in sucking your organs up and forward vs sucking them up and back.

I (one of those hearts that Blue taught us to make) Nauli - and alemama for discovering it!

Christine

Ya know...in thinking about this - and then feeling it - I think it may be that nauling forward affects cyctocele/UP and nauling back (on your back) affects rectocele!!

I know I did it standing up first- then after my cystocele was gone I started doing it on my back just so I could feel the back wall inside with my fingers (I can't seem to do that when I am standing) anyway it took a while (not much alone time in this place) but I figured out how to get the bulge to pull back to flush (I had to push the bulge in initially with my thumb and then I did a very strong pelvic contraction and felt the muscles under my thumb actually contract- oh man it was so weak I could almost believe I was imagining it at first) I was never able to get it to go away totally but I did get it so that all I had was a weak spot about the size of a small marble -
Well I had great hopes of strengthening the muscles all around that spot and one day have it be gone totally- but I can't work on it now- since I am pregnant.

Anyway= I am so glad you all are trying it. It really is an amazing exercise and very powerful- over time I was able to increase the power of the vacuum with the increase in strength I gained.

But ya it does just suck the cervix right up.

I do sometimes worry about doing it too much- and that maybe it would suck tissue from my uterus up into my tubes- but I didn't have any trouble getting pregnant so I figure I am ok for now.

SO excited to have company :)

Christine, Gmom talks about strengthening the muscles around the vagina (the vaginal wall?) in order to close off the hole/weak area in the rectovaginal septum that the rectocele distends/herniates through. Is this right Gmom, or are you talking about strengthening the pubococcygeus and the levator ani muscles, or the vaginal wall?

I am wondering if the vaginal wall is made of a muscle tissue that we have conscious control of, or is it just the process of labour that changes the vagina from long, narrow and thick to short, wide and thin during labour and birth? As muscles can only act by contracting, this tells me that muscle fibres in the vaginal wall have to run from end to end in order to shorten during labour and birth.

Christine, what is the vaginal wall made of? Can we consciously control it?

Louise

Louise – remember our member, Midwest Star, and her (and our) experiments with finer vaginal muscle control? These weren’t especially fruitful and the subject was dropped. I think the reason being that, as explained below, vaginal muscle is largely soft and involuntary. I see nauli as drawing the bowel up and out of the vaginal canal so that fascial planes have a chance to realign and restore.

The following is a textbook (Benson 1992) reply to your question.

The vagina is a fibromuscular tubal structure bounded anteriorly by the bladder and urethra and posteriorly by the rectum. It extends from the vestibule to the cervix and is referred to as a potential space because while in the resting position, the anterior and posterior walls are in apposition to one another.

The vagina is lined by stratified squamous epithelium, which is thin in low estrogen states (prepubertal and postmenopausal) and thickens with either physiologic or exogenous estrogen stimulation. The thickened epithelium forms transverse folds or rugqe. Underlying the epithelium is the lamina propria, which contains a dense network of elastic fibers. Collagen fibers extend from the elastic fibers to the underlying muscular layers.

The muscular layer has been described on the one hand as a bilayer of smooth muscle, with an inner circular layer and outer longitudinal layer. Alternatively, Plazer and others have described the arrangement of these muscular fibers as right and left turning spirals whose crossings produce obtuse angled grids supported by elastic fibers. This arrangement affords a greater capacity for stretch. Cranially, the muscle fibers merge into the myometrium. In the lower vagina, the smooth muscle is reinforced by striated muscle fibers, which enclose the caudal half of the urethra and terminate in the lateral and posterior vaginal walls forming the urethrovaginal sphincter. The vagina’s muscular layer is surrounded by the perivaginal portion of the endopelvic fascia.

Masters and Johnson in their classic observations of female sexual response established that the unstimulated vagina has a length from fourchette to posterior fornix of 7 to 8 cm. and a transcervical width (just anterior to the resting cervix) of 2 cm. With sexual arousal, the vagina is capable of significant enlargement. There is an involuntary lengthening and distention of the inner two thirds of the vaginal barrel such that length increases by as much as 5 cm and transcervical width increases by as much as 5.25 cm. Furthermore, this distention causes flattening of the vaginal epithelial rugal pattern. The vagina’s outer third distends minimally during early sexual arousal but eventually becomes grossly engorged due to vasocongestion, reducing the outer luminal size and forming the orgasmic platform.

Yep, you're right Gmom. I did mean Alemama's post. Silly me. Too lazy to check.

Alemama, I think Christine's answer has clarified my question about the vagina. Hopefully it is a little clearer to you, as well. :-)

Cheers

Louise

my first tear during childbirth ripped a third of the way up my posterior vaginal wall- and from my vaginal opening to my anus leaving my anal sphincter intact. I have had 2 tears after the first - neither as extensive.
The lower portion of the vagina is muscle tissue and I can feel it contract- my bulge is very very low- the lower fifth of my vagina-
I understand fairly well the anatomy of the vagina- and the difference between smooth muscle and skeletal muscle.
I do not think my prolapse is the cause of weak muscles- not at all. But I do think the muscles there have been helping to hold back that portion of intestine that is slipping through the hole.
I was able to recover from a cystocele (that I am sure was only there because of the rectocele and the desire of my body to have the two walls meet in the middle) and I have been able to greatly reduce the size of the bulge of intestine into my vagina by doing the Nauli breathing. The rectocele has been more stubborn- and I had to push the bulge back with my fingers or thumb to even start to see improvement- but at some point I found I could hold it back while doing Nauli if I contracted those muscles along the lower portion of the back wall- which was the final part of figuring out how my own situation works.
Look I don't want to perpetuate a myth-
I know that Nauli is only one part- If my body had not felt comfortable in the posture with my pelvic organs over my pubic bone and if I had not changed my diet all the Nauli in the world would not have helped me.
I would never ever claim that Kegels cured my prolapse. I really don't think it can be cured- just managed. In fact my rectocele is very noticeable right now- 3 months into my pregnancy- I think the Nauli only works if you can do it every day- and if you ever stop then expect the bulge to return-
But I saw much better results when I combined a kegal with Nauli in holding the bulge in my posterior wall back and eventually reducing the size of the weak area.
Hey I only have my own body as my guide- and of course all the research I can do into the anatomy of that area- and this has worked for me.

Hi Alemama

Ah, that's clearer now. With your understanding of your body I am sure that you will manage POP during pregnancy as well as any woman has been able to do. It is so easy to say that certain muscles have certain functions, but there are often more subtle functions of muscles. If the medical model of pelvic anatomy was complete and showed the way the configuration of the bones and muscles and organs changed in different body orientations I think we would see the muscles acting in different directions in relation to gravity and we might discover some different functions for them.

It will be great to see how you do it, and I am sure that many women considering another pregnancy with POP will be encouraged to be confident in their body's ability to deal with it. The more successful pregnancies and births we document, the more evidence there is for women who read the Forums.

Pregnancy is a strange time. It's like the whole woman is converted into an incubator. The effects of pregnancy go way beyond simply a grossly enlarged uterus. We only have a few nine month long periods in a lifetime to learn how to do it the best, so I think we need to share those times as much as we can for the benefit of others, even the yukky bits which sometimes arise, like your rectocele. I feel sure that your uterus will eventually support even the rectocele. Here's hoping, anyway. I am wondering if inversion might help to move your rectum up a bit, either lying in recovery position with your feet uphill or even deep forward bends from the hip with your feet well apart, and kind of jiggle it up, or down as the case may be. Heartburn might be an issue later.

When I am doing physical work I do a lot of deep forward bending with bent knees and my belly between my thighs. I feel that this position is quite good for getting my rectocele to move back up.

I don't lift in that position. I lift in deep plie with my load close in, feet in second position, bent from the hips, with a large lumbar curve and the thoracic spine quite vertical. I get vertical lift with my thighs and knees, then straighten my hips last.

Cheers

Louise

Hi ladies,
I've been working on nauli and I think I've got it pretty well - at least the "up" feeling (haven't got the abdominal muscles working quite so well while sucking everything in). But every time I do this my vagina fills with air (sorry, TMI I know). So on one hand yes, I KNOW I've got the vacuum part right, but on the other hand, this isn't very comfortable and as soon as I let go I feel like a balloon. Is this something that happens to everyone or is there a trick to preventing it? I've been leaning forward with my hands on my thighs while doing this, and it does seem to help with the prolapse so I will continue to do it.

but after doing it for some time it quit happening. It sounds like you have it- Don't forget to try the rolls. I think you can probably avoid the air pull in if you are able to tighten the opening to your vagina before you start. In the early pp weeks I would get down on knees and elbows and try to pull air in. It was noisy but I felt like it helped.
I can still get the air pull in when I hang upside down if I am not mindful of avoiding it-

sorry to ask but could someone please explain the difference between firebreathing, nauli and ab vacuum? I've been trying the firebreathing and guess that the ab vacuum is when you pull up and in your abs and the nauli is the stomach rolls that you can do. is this correct or are they all very different?