Cervix Height

[ckm5513]

What is normal cervix height for a nursing mother?  I can easily reach my cervix with a finger and actually go past it to the end of my vagina with the tip of my finger (cervix feels like it is on my front wall).  I have seen many doctors including a urogenocolgist and everyone said it is fine.  I do not remember my cervix being so low after the birth of my first baby.  I am 5 1/2 month PP and this is my second child.  How can you tell if you have uterine prolapse even if it is minor?  Sometimes while standing my cervix feels only about 1 1/2 - 2 inches inside of me.  Plus my whole vagina feels like it goes back towards my rectum now instead of up.  I also do not remember my vagina bulging out while having a bowel movement, before this last baby.  Again, docs says that is normal.  Can all these things of happened from childbirth, or was I just blind to them before?  Kegeling has helped, but I can still see my vaginal walls, and I am almost certain I could not before.  I feel like everything has drooped down.  Will this get better, with time or when I stop nursing?  I am also having some pain/numbness/pressure on the left side of my vagina, which is in my buttocks, and legs sometimes. Doctor thinks I like I have a "charlie horse" in that muscle - I think they are called muscle trigger points?  I going to physical therapy in June for it.  I feel like hamburger down there, and just want to feel normal again.  I feel like I am going mad cause everything feels so wrong down there - and I am so sick of being in pain and thinking about my vagina all the time!  Can you offer any insight?  Thank you, in advance!

[Lennox Hoyte, M.D.]

THe Vagina is a long muscular tube, normally anchored to the sides of the pelvis, and at the top to the tailbone. Normally, the vagina goes up, flattens out and curves back towards the tailbone. The uterus sits at the top of the vagina, and helps to hold it up, and is attached by 2 ligaments to the sacrum (Tailbone).  Before your first childbirth, the ligaments hold the vagina up tightly at the top and the sides. During childbirth, the ligaments at the top stretch, and usually do not recover all the way. After multiple childbirth episodes, the vagina itself can also stretch, and not recover. So, many women notice descent of the vagina and cervix after childbirth, which was not present before childbirth. Sometimes the problem can develop after the firsd, second, or later births. In fact, a large percentage of women after childbirth can have descent of the cervix and vagina, without having symptoms like pelvic pressure, or bladder control problems.
If you have symptoms associated with prolapse, like back pain, pelvic fullness, bladder control problems, without significant prolapse, then you may have problems with your pelvic floor muscles, which can be diagnosed and treated by a qualified pelvic floor physical therapist.  THe length of the cervix is usually about 3-5cm.

Dr. Hoyte

[b24]

I read your words and I just shake my head.  With all of their book learning and knowledge and with all of the research they all do, for one thing or the other, they want to give needles for this or that, but for all the issues and problems that women have narry a word.  Like I do not think they know what is normal here and what is not.  Suppose for once they listened and actually heard all of the things said by millions of women and attended to that?  Would it change the order of things in the world?  How can they say this and that is normal when there is discomfort and distress and all the rest.  Maybe it is related to the fact they wear their knickers and boxers way down low and not up nice and snug like we do.  Now the health care worker must be mindful not to pull the pants up too far and too tight, so heavens the same should be true for them.  Women do not like things down low and feeling open and loose all of the time.  They like their kickers and boxers to be pulled up close and tight to the body.  Are any of them listening??? Perhaps they should!