Question about sleep positions. New here.

Hello Want to be Whole again and welcome
I do admire you for managing on your own for so long. I'm 56 and luckily discovered Whole Woman nearly 6 months ago, almost immediately after realising I had a prolapse (cystocele). It has been such a blessing to be able to call on the support and advice available here and above all to know that there are so many woman living successfully with prolapse -Christine's ideas really do work.
With regard to sleeping, I think we have all wondered about the best position. It seems wasteful not to use the 8 hours doing something useful. I found a post that Louise made a while ago, which I think sums up the advice here: " it doesn't seem to matter, as gravity works at 90 degrees to how it acts when upright. However, it may help for you to sleep on your side, allowing your belly to hang forward. A pillow under your top leg might be helpful. Particularly in the early stages of WW work, allowing your pelvic organs to move forwards is the first step to keeping them there. We sleep for about 1/3 of our lives, so allowing the intestines and pelvic organs to flop forwards for 1/3 of our lives is intuitively a good way to start changing the way your pelvic organs are arranged around each other "
For myself, working on the basis that organs need to be tipped forward, I never sleep on my back. I tried sleeping on my front, with a pillow under my thighs, but found it not at all comfortable and my back was so stiff by morning that I had trouble getting out of bed! So now I always sleep on my side as described by Louise, - and additionally I have a small pillow under my bottom to tip me further forward. I also always spend some time on elbows and knees on the bed before I go to sleep,the theory being that at least the bladder starts the night off in the right place!
Hope this might help, I'm sure others will also give you some ideas.

Tintagel

Thank you for the info----I read this site everyday and learn something each time.
What would I ever do without everyone's help??? Thank you all and bless each of you and your families!

We are all really lucky to have each other. There is no other community anything like it. Everyone is so free with their experiences. Thankyou Christine and everyone who contributes.

The earth would be poorer without you.

This seems to be the best thread on here about sleeping positions (well, I didn't go back too far, so forgive me if I missed a better one). I'd like to know more. By default I tend to sleep on my right side with my knees drawn up in a fetal position. But I can retrain myself if there is a good reason to. My prolapse isn't an issue at night, so my question is not about what makes POP feel better right then, but rather, which positions are best and worst for POP in the long run.

On back - is this bad because gravity is pulling the organs in the wrong direction? Better of you add some support for the lumbar curve, but still not that great?

On stomach - I am smallish on top and I could manage this. But even though gravity is acting in the right direction, still my belly is getting squashed and that probably isn't a good thing.

On side - is one side better than the other, anatomically? In the absence of any circulation issues, of course, such as Want To Be Whole has mentioned. This does let the belly hang free. Fetal position creates a nice acute angle, but would a more stretched-out position be any better or worse?

I guess the big question is, what if anything should be AVOIDED? Thanks!

Hi Susrviving60

We have all this organ mobility for a couple of reasons. Firstly, some of us have had babies and so our bodies have 'matured'. Our breasts are different after a pregnancy. Our pelvic organs are more mobile after a pregnancy. Perhaps our fascia is programmed to not have any give in it, while we are growing, in order to get our organs into the right places, then a pregnancy comes along and fine tunes it.

Our endopelvic fascia has to have some give in it all through our lives to accommodate the enormous change in size of the uterus, and to maintain the function of our ovaries after the first pregnancy; to accommodate a bowel that fills and empties, and sometimes gets constipated; a bladder that fills and empties regulary.

Prolapse happens when bursts of intraabdominal forces generated during breathing, coughing, sneezing, and moving in a posture that is not fully supportive of these organs, pushes them out of position, and probably injures the fascia, or stretches it chronically.

When we are asleep, lying down, the positions of our pelvic organs are protected from prolapse because the vagina is basically horizontal, and gravity is acting 'sideways'. We are at rest, and not trying to do impossible things that would otherwise produce bursts of intraabdominal pressure that might damage our endopelvic fascia. I think sexual gymnastics in unfriendly positions is about the only exception to this, if you are 'horizontal' at the time.

I think night coughing is one of the insidious causes of POP because it is not easy to maintain pelvic organ positions, as you describe. Anyone who has stress incontinence during night coughing will understand this. Sitting up, well-supported, all night, is about the only way to get around it. It becomes pertinent to not let it get established in the first place, or bring night coughing to a halt as soon as you can.

So, if you are just peacefully resting horizontally, I see no point in being obessive about the positioning of your pelvic organs. There will be many other things you do while vertical during the day which will be the major determinants of how well your endopelvic fascia will hold up, or has held up so far.

Louise

Thanks Louise for the answer. Regarding coughing - it isn't a big problem for me, but if I do have to cough or sneeze in bed, I guess lying on the side at an acute angle is probably as good an anything (short of actually sitting up in bed).

Yes, I think "just don't curl up, whatever happens!" The thought of having to change sheets in the middle of the night is enough to keep me upright if it ever happens, but I am learning new tricks all the time, and have not had to sleep sitting up for the last couple of wogs