newbie (to here, and to POP!), prolapse during pregnancy

Hi Bluecanadian,
Welcome to WW. I'm glad that you are finding the info here helpful. I am sure that those with experience of POP during pregnancy will soon reply, but a few quick thoughts...

to void your bladder--have you tried all fours in the shower? that can be a great one to help reposition it and to them empty your bladder. If you are having trouble emptying your bladder doing this morning and night will help avoid a bladder infection.

The experience of lots of women here is that there POP is very low in the first trimester until the uterus moves up and out of the pelvis, and then things get much better. Being pregnant you won't want to do many of the excercises, but you can work on your posture, and spending lots of time on all fours will probably really help as well. Those mamas who have been pregnant after finding WW will be able to tell you more about what excercises are ok and helped during pregnancy...

Kiki

oh gosh! I'm tired tonight.
Let's see, a million things are in my mind to tell you but let me just say welcome! and not to worry things are going to get much better.
If someone else doesn't come in and say all the things I'm thinking I'll get back here tomorrow.
The most important thing you need to know right now is that prolapse will not in anyway compromise the safety of your unborn child.
gotta run- baby crying....

Hi Bluecanadian. I can see that you are going to fit in here just fine! Freemasons have secret handshakes. Wholewomen have secret peeing rituals.

I can see in my mind what is happening. I had a retroverted uterus all my adult life. It flipped forwards several years into Wholewoman practice, and about two years before menopause. What a relief it was!

I think your uterus is getting caught under your sacrum, and is pressing downwards and forwards onto your bladder. Your bladder might not be as full as you think, but there will be extra pressure in it from being squashed by your uterus.

I agree that all fours or firebreathing posture *only* (not the breathing bits) will help your uterus to flop forwards and pop out of the top of your pubic bones. When in firebreathing posture, bent from the hip joints, rest your hands on your bent knees, and do some shimmies or just jiggle up and down to shake up your pelvic contents a bit. You will need to let your abdominal muscles all go floppy so there is room for your uterus to move out. Nothing can force your uterus up, because the ligaments will need to grow first to allow it to come up. Once your uterus comes up and out your bowel will move into that space, and hopefully you will feel better, and peeing will be easier and not so frequent. I can remember reading about frequency of urination being a symptom of pregnancy, but now I understand why.

Wholewoman posture, with a very relaxed lower belly, no butt tucking, and prominent breasts, will tip your pelvis to a more upright position, rather than a bowl shape. This will allow your uterus to literally roll forwards when it is ready, and your cervix will hopefully disappear up the plughole, instead of trying to come down the plughole. I don't think anything is really going to help the night time problem until your uterus pops out.

Are you feeling puffy and bloated? The only reason I ask is that when people have medical conditions that make them retain fluid, particularly kidney and bladder problems and heart failure, they will urinate much more at night, when they are horizontal, and gravity can help drain the fluid. Might be worth checking with a doctor if you really are producing an enormous volume of urine at night, compared to during the day.

Louise

Hi!

I agree with Louise, sounds like you tipped uterus is trapped in the small pelvis, I had the same thing in my last pregnancy, the cervix, started to come out the opening around week 12.. it didn`t rise up untill week 17-18, those weeks was awful, but its not gonna hurt the baby, its only you that will be uncomfortable..some doctors, if they know anything about this, can manually push the uterus forward and into place..I had a doctor push the uterus through my rectum..but it was stuck..two days later it poped up by it self.. what a relief that was..:)

Good luck!!

Hi Bluecanadian

I did find the article in The Library, but the title has changed, and I think the content is slightly different from before. I have asked Christine if there is a better description somewhere else. Watch this space.

The morning after the birth of my first baby back in 1982, an older and very experienced midwife examined me and told me that my uterus had shrunk down well for day 2 pp, and that it had also gone back to being retroverted. I was lying on my back for the examination, and spent a lot of time basically lying on my back during my eight days in hospital. This midwife advised me to lie on my tummy as much as possible in an attempt to get my uterus to move forward. I thought at the time, "Oh sure! (hint of disbelief here) What's the point? My retroverted uterus has not caused me any problems yet." In hindsight I can see that I was so wrong.

Some research I read a few months ago gave frighteningly high rates of POP for women with retroverted uterus. I cannot understand why doctors and midwives do not make more of a fuss about it, and use all the tools available to them to move the uterus forward, and research how it happens in the first place. The cause has to be postural and/or developmental. It would save so many women so much ill health if they could work out how it happens in the first place.

I have often wondered, had I spent my pp horizontal time in hospital in coma position, alternating sides on both sides, and slept in the same position, would I have been able to let all the connective tissue (which was still stretched at that time) to allow my uterus to come forward and stay forward? If I had known about WW posture at the time my standing posture would have reinforced that forward position while I was upright.

I was very busy convincing myself that, by tucking my butt under and holding my tummy in, I was the shapliest Mum on the maternity Ward, and would be back in my tight jeans in no time flat. I know now that I was setting myself up for POP, and would advise pp Mums vigorously against doing what I did. I was secretly chuffed that my abdominal muscles did actually work, because I had done a lot of antenatal exercises to ensure that they would work pp.

I am hoping that Christine and Aza will chime in here and comment on this postpartum strategy. They know more than I do about what happens postpartum, and this strategy might help you to reverse your retroverted uterus postpartum (and other women's as well), at a time when I imagine there would be the greatest possibility of turning it over, while its supports are still loose. This early postpartum time might indeed be the best window of opportunity in a woman's life.

Bluecanadian, please don't take this strategy as medical or other advice. We don't give medical advice here. I would hate to give you the impression that it will definitely work, but it is something I *think* is worth investigating and talking about, because nothing else seems to work, and there are definitely problems associated with retroverted uterus, both in pregnancy and outside of pregnancy.

Christine and Aza, over to you.

Louise

Hi bluecanadian,
I think you are pretty impressive with the degree of familiarity you have with your body! The asymmetry you describe sounds like a pretty reasonable thing to be experiencing since this is your third baby and you know you have some sort of prolapse / incarceration / retroversion happening.
Hopefully you will experience relief in the coming weeks, like christine_80 did. Can you feel your fundus up above your pubic bone yet? Not sure if the prolapse and no more feeling of flutters is related, but it makes sense that it could be. Also, if your placenta is on the front wall of your uterus, that can muffle movements.
I have found 2 things to be helpful for women experiencing what you are. One is to go onto all fours, head on the ground and bum in the air, and gently move the uterus forward through the vagina. Depending on the length of your arms, you may be able to do this yourself, or you can ask a willing partner or midwife or whoever you are comfortable with to help. In this position it is easier to get behind the lower back wall of the uterus and encourage it to fall forwards. Be very gentle and listen to how it is feeling in your body. Sometimes the uterus stays put, and other times it doesn't last long, depending on a variety of factors.
Another option is to use a reboso (a shawl works fine, too) - go into that same head down, bum up position. Have someone wrap your bum in the shawl lengthwise and stand at your head and gentle jiggle your pelvis. The effect of this is often incredibly efficient at enabling the body to soften and release some of the ligaments that hold organs in place, allowing them to nudge forward.
Here are some pics that may help:
http://spinningbabies.simplwebsite.com/techniques/the-inversion
About halfway down the page there is a shot of a woman sitting on the chair. Imagine the shawl wrapped around the pregnant woman's bum and held by the woman seated. You can also jig your own pelvis without the shawl, nothing like a good pelvic wiggle to loosen and release ;)
I agree with you wholeheartedly, Louise. The more I see the more I am convinced that retroversion is not ok, and one of the most effective things we can do is ensure the uterus returns to the anteverted position post-natally. The less time spent laying on our backs after birth, the better. Interesting that it is extremely challenging, if not downright impossible, to nurse a baby while on our backs ;) yet side lying is doable for most women eventually.

Hi and welcome, Bluecanadian!

While I believe the retroverted/retroflexed uterus is largely a structural (postural and developmental) problem, there probably is a genetic component as well. I have known three generations of women with a completely retroflexed uterus.

My thoughts on the postpartum period are very similar to what is needed in general to maintain good anatomical support. We should all avoid extended periods of lying on our backs propped up with pillows - the classic reading in bed posture that we all love. But new moms should really try to limit this as much as possible. I know - it is *the* standard breastfeeding posture, but is it really comfortable over time? I think most new moms will find that sitting up and over their thighs is much more sustainable - with less backache.

If you are lying flat on your back on a firm surface (traditional peoples slept on their backs on the floor!) your body is able to create the same dynamics as standing. Place your hand underneath your lower back and feel your lumbar spine pull forward with every in-breath. Anthropologists say the human tailbone flexes under because we use this sleeping position (four-leggeds generally don’t sleep on their backs).

Therefore, I’m not sure sleeping on your tummy is superior to sleeping on your back. Anyway, I often say, “The work gets done while we’re on our feet”. This is when all the dynamics of bipedal posture work together to create optimum pelvic organ support. Seated postures are also very good. What is unstable are such things as the obtuse angle created by the reading-in-bed position, and lying flat on your back with a pillow under your head and another under your knees (obtuse again).

I think new moms should sit up and stand up as much as possible, and lie down flat (and side-lying) the rest of the time. Hands and knees is always good. The challenge of the female body is to maintain the organs in hands and knees position (against the abdominal wall) while standing! The young body does this very well, but it gets more difficult as we age.

When you are well past the postpartum stage, Bluecanadian, you may find some of those exercises on the dvd very helpful. We have a good Portuguese friend (does anyone remember her name - it escapes me atm) who was very worried that she had moved her prolapsed uterus *too far* forward into super-anteflexion. I can’t remember how she came to that conclusion, but we calmed her down and she fully recovered. This stuff does work.

Wishing you well, (I often use this sign-off with newbies, but have never explained that I do it as a little good-luck ritual instead of a standard nicety.)

:) Christine

This is helpful:
"If you are lying flat on your back on a firm surface (traditional peoples slept on their backs on the floor!) your body is able to create the same dynamics as standing. Place your hand underneath your lower back and feel your lumbar spine pull forward with every in-breath. Anthropologists say the human tailbone flexes under because we use this sleeping position (four-leggeds generally don’t sleep on their backs)."
Almost every woman who has just given birth is incredibly excited to be able to lay on her back again, though I have never, ever seen anyone laying in any position that even remotely resembles descent structural support, as described above. Usually the use of pillows crunch the chin into the chest, rounds the spine, the lumbar curve is nowhere to be seen, and the pelvis counternutates, taking the organs back and down with it.