new to the forum and have questions

Welcome to Wholewoman! I'm so glad you found this website, and that it gives you peace of mind and hope! The posture is basically tilting your pelvis forward in order to encourage your vagina to close tightly, thus helping the tissues heal and preventing further prolapse. This way all your pelvic organs go forward and over your pubic bone, as opposed to down the shoot. I would practice the posture sitting down first. Sit and sort of tuck your butt. When I do this I feel pressure immediately. Then slowly tilt your pelvis the other way, thinking about your tail bone coming up. I would do this a couple of times until you get used to the feeling of tucking (not good), and sitting in wholewoman posture.I would then try it standing. It isn't extremely different from normal posture. What you're trying to do is to not tuck your butt in. Remember that the posture takes a lot of work for everyone. It can feel very unnatural and uncomfortable at first. Hopefully someone with more of an understanding of anatomy will respond to your post. Granolamom, Louise and Christine all have extensive knowledge of the way the body works. Good luck and congrats on your pregnancy!

hi there & welcome to the site

I think by now, you know that specialists are only specialists in their chosen field.
YOU are the specialist on YOU
so YOU will have to figure out what is possible.
the WW program was developed around the ability to maintain the posture. I'm not sure what your limitations are in this regard. could be that you may have to figure out some modifications, keeping the important points in place.
so the first thing I'd recommend is reading up on the faqs and trying out the posture. ask any and all questions you have, get specific when it comes to any postural difficulties you're experiencing due to weakness/atrophy/etc and maybe we can help you problem solve.
the main idea here is to keep your pelvis tilting forward so that your pelvic organs aren't hanging over your vagina, but safely housed in your lower belly over your pubic bone. you can do this even while sitting, so I am hopeful that you can find this helpful, spina bifida notwithstanding.

can you get into and maintain an 'all fours' position? I'm just starting to think .... some of the most helpful exercises, nauli and firebreathing, are probably near impossible to do without strong calf muscles. wondering if they can be adapted for quadruped. I'd try it myself but I'm pg and can't do much of anything right now.
anyone know?

and I've never heard of the cow bladder supplement.

You take my breath away. Congratulations on your pregnancy. We don't hear much about living with spina bifida as an adult. To my knowledge we haven't ever had a Member with spina bifida before.

From the little I know about spina bifida it depends on the location of the spina bifida and its severity, as to the functions that it interrupts. I guess that the degree of muscle function in the pelvic area will determine how much control you have of lower body posture. It sounds like you have control of the muscles in the thigh area. How about around your hips, sacrum and lower spine? Have a look at the posture questions in the FAQ's on the main website and see what you think. I think Lyricmama's suggestion about trying WW posture sitting, in the first instance, is sound. Call back.

Cheers

Louise

Hi sunset28
The impression that I get from your 2 posts is that if anyone has the attitude of mind that's required to make this work for you, you have - you seem to have a very constructive and positive approach to life that comes shining, and that is hugely important.
On practical matters, I'm not one of the experts on this site, I'm sure you'll get more input from them. Generally, re tight clothes, if you read other posts and the book/DVD etc, you'll find that they are not considered a good idea because they make the posture difficult and don't allow enough space around the abdomen to allow the pelvic organs to position themselves forwards. Having said that, it makes sense that tightness is a reassurance if you feel that everything is falling out, so maybe something like Christine's SI belt. I'm sure I read a post once advocating wearing a thong, rather than knickers. Other people's experiences/ideas may be helpful here. Braces on your (otherwise loose) trousers? Remember old-fashioned sanitary belts where the towel clipped on to the belt (no, you're too young). Anyway, it seems that anything that feels as if it's pushing up against your perineum without also compressing the abdomen woud do the trick.

Re posture, I also have some physical issues, not as severe as yours. I have found that seemingly small adjustments to different parts of my anatomy, by no means just the pelvis, can make a world of difference in the positioning of pelvic organs, and it's worth experimenting. Lately I've been discovering just how important my feet are - making sure I'm standing squarely on heels and the entire width of my feet; not clenching my buttocks; doing every activity with less tension eg in my arms.

Please keep posting with feedback and questions because I'm sure you'll get lots of helpful tips that will enable you to discover more and more what you can do. Wishing you all the best in this, so glad you found the site. Judith

Well Sunset, my dear, life is full of choices. If you allow your lower abdomen to make its own arangements, it will leave more room up front for your organs to sit. It will also keep them tucked away from being pushed out of your vagina by intraabdominal forces. If you prevent your lower abdomen from expanding and finding its own position it will increase the chance of these organs being pushed down the vagina. It really is as simple as that. There are features of out bodies that we can feel negative about, but every part of each body is designed the way it is for a reason. If we try and change it your body will compensate, and it might not be in a good way. Women have soft bellies for good reasons. Please don't think I am growling at you, but there is little point in telling you anything but the uncomfortable truth. I think that once you understand how the female body can reinforce its own integrity you will see the good sense in letting your belly be, and not compressing it.

If you wear these support garments really tight it will be more risky for you. If you get them fitted well, so they are just firm, more like a 'smoother-outer' than a 'puller-inner', it might not be problematic. I really don't know.

We all have to decide for ourselves how far we are prepared to go, and how many changes we are prepared to make, in order to manage our prolapses.

Whatever happens, you can try posture with and without the garments and see if it makes a difference later in the day. What works for you works for you. Hopefully you will find a way to feel secure, but with your organs tucked firmly inside.

Yep, breasts out proudly out front. Butt not so far out the back, but definitely not tucked in. I call it porn star posture (it's the closest I will ever get to being a porn star!), though it is not as exaggerated as that. Don't know about the headache. Remember to keep your shoulders very relaxed, and don't pull them back. Your neck should be tall and your chin slightly tucked. Flex your knees slightly. It is like being suspended by a cord from the crown (not the top) of your head. Because your ribcage is high it stretches your rectus abdominus muscles quite taut. You will find that your belly is quite firm, but not hard. It is totally shameless posture, and very female. I found that quite confronting at first, but now I really enjoy it!

I hope your body will be able to make the posture work. It really is a whole body thing. Just do what you can, and see how it goes.

Cheers

Louise

Hi Sunset

Thank goodness your doctor was sensible when you turned up at the hospital again.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I guess you have had quite a bit to do with doctors trying for all the right reasons to 'fix you up' all your life. By its nature the medical system is one of action, doing something to improve the patient's life, whether with medication or with surgery. 'Letting things be' is not generally their way.

Sure, the pelvic organs are quite unstable for several months after birth because the inside and the outside have been grossly stretched, Whoever you are and whatever body you live in the body does stabilise itself. It is built to do that. It just takes time. Put it in the right posture and you give it the best chance of recovering its former stability and not doing itself damage in the meantime. That's not to say that you have to wrap yourself in cotton wool. Just get to know how your body protects itself and respect its need to do so.

All women feel a bit anxious at some stage during pregnancy. Giving birth is a rite of passage for women, and rightly so. Being born and giving birth ourselves are two of the most inherently dnagerous things we ever do. When we are pregnant our body takes on a personality of its own. Likewise, after we give birth it is different again. Your worries are quite understandable, but lets not pretend that you can foretell the future or predict that your uterus will prolapse again, postpartum. You have the knowledge now that will keep it inside you.

Periodically I have an internal exam. Sometimes the doctor will want to check the extent of my POPs so I dutifully bear down, just a little, to satisfy them, but nowhere near as far as I can. Why would I enourage my bladder and uterus to peep out of my vagina just to satisfy a doctor that I have 3rd degree POP? My bits never peep these days. Can my cervix peep out of my vagina? Yes, but I prevent it from doing so. Do I still have 3rd degree POP? Well yes, I suppose I do, but it is of no consequence to me.

I did read on these Forums about a year ago about a Member's mother who delivered the whole uterus when she gave birth. They shoved it all back in again after the birth and she never had prolapse problems develop. Not sure if she is still alive, but that was pretty good news for any postpartum woman.

There really is no need to worry. Just pull yourself up into WW posture and stay there in all your waking hours, proud Zulu Princess that you are, until you are actively labouring, when the body adjusts itself, and straightens the lumbar spine, and counternutates the pelvis on the sacrum to line everything up in as straight a line as possible for the emergence of the baby, the head first, then the foetus rotates through 90 degrees to allow the shoulders to pass through, then the rest of the body follows. "Clatter, slither, plop", a baby, (as Toad in Wind in the Willows said when the invitation to the Grand Annual Show was delivered through the narrow slit of the letterbox in his rather modest front door). Then the placenta does the same thing, with less clatter, less slither, and more plop!

When you first get up after birthing, go onto your side and get up on hands and knees, or lean over the bed, bath, pool or whatever. Allow your uterus and bladder to fall forwards into your still ample belly. You might even feel the change in loading, because a big bag of jelly is joined onto your vaginal vault and pulling your vagina forward and into that still big belly space. Then pull the top half of your body up, up, up, straight away, tall and proud, and allow your body to experience its old balance again. Lift your chest, relax your belly and allow your body to settle back again. You will probably feel a bit weird, but this is the posture that allowed your to carry your baby way out front during later pregnancy. Your body will be quite familiar with it. You might look in the mirror and see a women who looks still pregnant. Well, you will be almost still pregnant and the changes and reversion back to being not pregnant will have already started and will continue noticably for at least a year, probably two, then subtley for several years after that.

If you carry yourself tall and allow your body to suck your uterus back into your relaxed belly it is very difficult to push it out again. Be proud of your saggy belly. It is there for a reason for several months postpartum, a trophy and visible sign of your fertility. You can describe it how you like. It is still just a relaxed, stretched belly, fresh from its fertility, like loose ground after the root crops have been harvested. ('root crop', hmmm ...) Some would call it gross, fat, ugly, saggy, sloppy, floppy or other unfriendly words. It is still just a relaxed, stretched belly, fresh from its fertility, like loose ground after the carrots or potatoes have been harvested.

Love and tend your baby and love and tend the fertile ground that is your baby's first home. You will be well rewarded.

Goodness me, that was a bit philosophical for first thing in the morning!

Cheers

Louise

Your post is pure poetry, Louise.

I guess because we correspond off the forum so much, and also because you feel like a sister to me, that I have been completely remiss in openly expressing how beautiful and helpful your words are to all of us at wholewoman. I hasten to think about all the untold numbers of precious human lives you have helped over the years, including me in my darker moments. Thank you!

I love how we can wrestle with issues - both inconsequential and grave - and yet not lose ourselves or our friendship in the process of coming to deeper truths. Thank you!

Also, you are the funniest person I've ever known. I am experiencing a rebirth of my long-lost sense of humor, which I guess is one of the gifts of cronehood, and wouldn't doubt that in part it is due to the role model I have had in you. I can't tell you all the times I've been doubled over in laughter at one of your one-liners. Thank you dear Louise!!

Love from Christine

Hi Sunset

I am so glad that you feel encouraged because that is good for your heart. This whole prolapse thing does many women's heads in. I think it is because it is a condition unseen by anybody other than the woman concerned. Even sexual partners don't seem to experience sex differently when a woman has POP. The other reason is that it is not widely talked about. Women don't even talk about it between themselves, or at least not in the graphic way that we can here. Also it creeps up on you, getting worse slowly, so there is an element of disbelief when you finally get a diagnosis that tells you that your POP is significant, and that you weren't imagining it after all. There are also often feelings of shame about it, to do with being damaged, no longer as complete as the day you were born. I don't know why this is. There is no rational reason for it. People are not ashamed of their spina bifida, or their asthma, or their diabetes, are they? But these conditions are talked about by the wider community, and there are massive public education campaigns about them. eg, Australia has recently decided that there should be folate in all bought bread to ensure that women who are not pregnant get enough to prevent neural tube defects if they do become pregnant.

I was 29 after the birth of my first baby when I had the episiotomy that started it all. Anyway, you have probably read my story by now. I have been using Wholewoman posture for about 5 years.

Vanity is a hard thing to overcome. I have always been a very down to earth woman, and never felt very sexy as a younger woman. I didn't feel comfortable wearing clothes that showed off my female assets, and I certainly didn't feel as if I was confident enough to compete in the dating and mating marketplace.

Wholewoman posture changed all that, at the ripe old age of 51 at the time. I now feel more feminine than I ever have felt, and play Princesses all the time. I have learned to have fun and not to take my sexual and sensual nature too seriously. I flirt shamelessly with males and females. Don't get me wrong. It is not in a sexual way, more like the school playground, where kids use words and body language to play innocent (rather than malicious) mind games with each other. Maybe I never did that as a kid, and need to do it now? Anyway, it is fun, and quite innocent in intent. I haven't been misread yet. I also wear my clothes differently. I always used to be a trousers girl, but now I don't like trousers, except for yoga pants. I still hate pantihose but stockings feel OK if I need covered legs. I don't like the rubbing of clothes in my crotch so skirts are my preference, usually long and flowing. I don't mind wearing fitted tops and dresses, which I have never really enjoyed before. I think I felt that it was wrong, or something. Weird. I am a child of the '60's. It didn't feel OK then either. This should not be!

I really enjoy being feminine these days, in a way that I never did before. It may also have something to do with the life stage I am at, where I am not a sexual threat to anybody, nor am I a pregnancy risk. I can just be me, with no hidden agenda. In that way I am at a completely different stage to you, so that may not mean anything to you.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that WW posture has connected me with my femininity, and allowed me to feel female, and accept my body in public and in private. Of course, I still dress professionally in the workplace, but my posture is still WW, and I still feel very female.

One thing that Wholewoman posture does is puts your breast up front, and stretches a saggy tummy lengthwise, so it doesn't look as saggy. There is an overall look of confidence, and the right to be there as a woman, not feminine vulnerability. I have always had a lot of padding around my abdomen and no butt, so now I can be proud of what I have and not have to worry about keeping my tummy in and my minimal blutt tucked under. It is very relaxing feeling to know that I don't have to be in control of my tummy anymore.

Re supermarket saggy belly, people have no idea how a comment like that will be taken! They don't mean to hurt, even if they are stupid enough to ask. That is something I would never do, because I have been a victim of thoughtless questions myself. What planet are these people from??? It must be to do with the supermarket environment, where we leave our commonsense and sense of restraint at the trolley bay when we collect a trolley. They are just so ignorant. Of course you will have a saggy belly for a while after the birth of your baby, but you will have enormous boobs and a baby, so hopefully they will understand that you are not pregnant!

Re getting your hopes up, the only thing that will limit you with WW posture will be the muscles that are either working or not working. Most of the work is in the upper body. The lower body just responds to what is happening above the hips if you have some lower back control. You are going to breaking new ground with this, and you are going to be the only person who will know how much you can do. Please keep calling in with progress reports, even if they are not success filled, because other women with spina bifida will most likely turn up to read at some point.

BTW, not being able to do Kegels is irrelevant if you can get your posture organised. I only do Kegels when I feel like it. They are not a part of my women's health routine, and mine are fine. I have done them postpartum, I admit, but we are supposed to do them for life. Sorry, but I can't see the point of it for me, because they stay strong in Wholewoman posture while we walk and do everyday things. In normal, slouchy posture your pelvic floor is loose, as are your rectus abdominus muscles. Getting into Wholewoman posture kind of winds up the lower body, like winding up a spring clock, and both pelvic floor and rectus abdominus become more taut. You need to read Saving the Whole Woman to understand how this happens. It is quite complex anatomy, and it is truly amazing!

Re diet, no it is not onerous. Constipation is the enemy of the woman with POP. Diet is really just about ensuring that your body gets the right sort of fuel, with complex carbohydrates and plenty of fibre, not too much meat to plug you up, having enough fluids etc. Many women are vegetarian. I am not, but I have cut down on meat, and upped legumes and pulses. Many do not eat dairy foods or gluten. I eat some wheat, but am eating more different grains now. I eat some cheeses and some natural yoghurt, and cooked milk, but don't drink a lot of milk or have a lot of cream. I love butter and olive oil, but eat little of the modern polyunsaturated oils. We hardly eat any pre-prepared foods or cooking ingredients. I also try to keep my consumption of vegetables up, particularly green stuff. We grow a lot of parsley and green vegetables so there is always something to throw in a stirfry to keep the calcium levels up.

Enjoy.

Louise

I have one, I think its the mini prenatal cradle. its a wide elastic band that fits around the low back/sacrum and under the belly. I wear it when walking but find it extremely uncomfortable to sit while wearing it.
I think its fine with WW principles.

all the organs hold each other up. in fact, when I first got here, it just so happened that most of the women posting had primarily uterine prolapse issues. and it seemed (at least to me) that lifting the uterus was easier than repositioning the bladder.

they are all connected, and repositioning/lifting one organ is bound to have a similar effect on everything else in the area.

the uterus, when in its proper location/orientation holds everything in place by its weight and the force it exerts against the bladder (keeping the bladder pinned against the low anterior abdominal wall)

the posture involves a pulling up of the spine, which in turn pulls up all of your fascia and everything connected to the fascia (which is pretty much all of your internal organs). the firebreathing and nauli directly affect the uterus.

when those of us with cystoceles talk about the bladder holding things up, we (well, I, anyway) mean that the bulge of my prolapsed bladder is holding back other organs from bulging into the space. this is not an ideal situation, of course, we'd rather have no bulge and no need for one bulge to prevent another. but this is a situation that works well, at least until everything is pulled up/repositioned in a more optimal way.

obviously, I cannot predict or guarantee anything, but I believe that WW can absolutely be helpful to someone with your type and degree of prolapse. stay hopeful and give it a go. what have you got to lose?

The Christine Kent for whom we have to thank for the book Saving the Whole Woman, and this website, began this work in response to her own profound uterine prolapse. So . . . yes! This should very, very, very much work for you! WW was meant for UP!!!!

Hi Newbies

"Is it against WW principles?" No, none of these things are against WW principles.

The only principles of Wholewoman seem to be:-
1 Do no harm.
2 Use your body's own structural system properly to keep your pelvic organs inside your body, and keep symptoms at bay. Your body's skeleton, muscles, ligaments and fascia are perfectly designed as a unit to hold everything in its right place. If there is damage to one, another can compensate to a degree. Surgery re-suspends organs in unnatural configuration, which often changes a woman's structure prevents her from using it efficiently. (See 1.)
3 Bodies suffer wear and tear. Use whatever tools you can find that will help you, as long as you can stop using them if they do not work, or make it worse. (see 1.) Surgery is basically irreversible.

Do I have this right?

Louise