anteverted vs retroverted

Hi Sadiedog

My uterus was found to be retroverted the first time I had a PAP smear as a young adult, right through three postpartum periods and as my kids grew up. Not sure at what point, but it was after I started Wholewoman, maybe after the most recent descent, about 2 or 3 years ago, I realised that for the first time in my life, my cervix was pointing backwards, even though it was lower. It was now just like the dodgy little diagram in the tampon packet, for the first time!

Thinking about this, of course it was lower because my uterus had previously been hanging back, sitting on my rectum, upside down, cervix pointing upwards. Now it was sitting forwards, over my bladder, horizontal with the cervix pointing slightly downwards. My cervix was just *pointing* lower!! My uterus was actually higher! (I never realised this change until I just wrote it!). I suspect that the presence of my uterus on top of my rectum may also have contributed to the formation of my rectocele.

After having babies I used to have a heavier menstrual flow during the night, with flooding, and lighter during the day. It changed to the other way around as the uterus changed position. I guess gravity helped to empty my uterus during the night. For the last couple of years of perimenopause I had hardly any night flow at all, and day flow decreased too.

WW posture must have tipped my uterus forward after my pelvic contents adjusted position after a while, just like Christine says. It would probably have flopped backwards and forwards a bit at first, but I found my cervix coming out of the anterior vaginal wall more and more often as time went by. At my most recent PAP smear earlier this year my doctor had difficulty finding my cervix, even though it was in the right spot, no doubt hidden by my lumpy vaginal tissue. Now, since menopause, my uterus and cervix are both quite small according to my doctor. I guess its weight matters less than my body's ability to get my vagina in its right spot and flip it over to where it belongs. It also takes up less room, so it can probably move around to the right spot more easily.

I put the half-a-lifetime persistence of the retroversion down to tucking my butt and tummy from around puberty, and in the postpartum periods, and as I regained fitness and body shape after babies. The ligaments would all have gone back to a length that 'supported' my uterus in a retroverted position until I stopped tucking my butt and tummy, and the change to Wholewoman posture would have just enabled it to capitulate to anteverted one day. Like slither, plop, and over she went!!

That's the only way I can explain it. I think my memory bears up all these changes and when they happened. I didn't try and change my uterus. I had assumed mine developed retroverted during childhood, as doctors were quite unworried by it in adulthood. Perhaps it went retroverted once I started tucking butt and tum, then went back to anteverted when I stopped tucking butt and tum?

Cheers

Louise

I had a retroverted (even retroflexed) uterus all my life. I started WW posture last April and by May or so, my uterus decided to change its position and became anteverted. I have a backwards pointing cervix now.

It is weird, but all my menstruation cramps went away. All. I feel fine around my period now (okay, along with some heaviness, but I guess it is normal with POP a.k.a. : normal, lol.)
Liv

Nope, no pessary. :)
Liv

Hi Sadiedo

Don't get despondent about your retroverted uterus. I really didn't think mine would ever change its orientation, and it did take a couple of years, not a couple of months of WW. I certainly couldn't get it to tip forward. Mine was retroverted through three pregnancies and postpartum periods. I had always thought that my uterine ligaments must be anatomically different, but I could never figure out why. Now I know more about my pelvic anatomy I can see that my endopelvic fascia kind of turned inside out. Instead of being draped over my bladder my uterus was flipped back and kept upside down by these ligaments that had a half twist in them. Somehow my rectum must have slipped forward as I was growing as a girl, so my vagina was pushed up in front of my uterus instead of behind it. I did suffer childhood constipation, so no doubt there was a higher volume of stool in there all the time, either at the front, pressing the uterus back, or in the rectum, pushing the vagina forward. That combined effect might have done it. My rectocele may have started developing way back then, and only blown out completely after episiotomy with my first baby's birth.

Sadiedog, I cannot remember your age. Your fibroids should shrink with your uterus at menopause, so it is probably something that has a time limit.

Are there any post-menopause Members out there with a 'still retroverted' uterus?

Just wondering. I wonder if the presence of the pessary would be making the vagina so wide that it could impede the movement of the uterus, kind of like the head of a squash racquet in your pelvic cavity? When I think how big my old pessary was, 70mm across, and how much space it must have taken up across my pelvic cavity which is only about 140mm across in total, inside the true pelvis where the pessary would sit.

I wouldn't want to alarm you because it is only a question I am asking, not making a definitive statement. I just never thought about it before. I wonder what the others think?

Louise