Erm, has my womb moved?

[worrying]

So I had my first scan on Wednesday and they had to do it internally as my uterus was so far back.

Yesterday I had an ob appointment and she really struggled to find baby on the doppler or ultrasound. Eventually the consultant found it and everything was fine. They too pointed out that my uterus was tilted and far back, but reassured me it was fairly normal.

I got to thinking this morning though. This is baby #2 and there was never any trouble locating my daughter. Even at 9 weeks they found her right away with the ultrasound over the belly.. So what gives? Did my womb move??

 

[IchigoMewMew]

I guess it's possible, I got stuck when I was born my Mum has had a few surgeries on the muscles/ligaments that support her womb because they became very weak. I think in general when everything shrinks back it stays a bit larger and baggier than it started.

 

[MindUtopia]

Yes, it is possible. You can have either an anteverted or retroverted uterus, basically either it tips forwards or backwards. Anteverted (forward-tilting) is considered the 'norm' only because it's more common statistically, but retroverted isn't abnormal, just less common. I've always had a retroverted uterus. It was noted on a scan I had years ago when I was probably about 20 (not pregnancy related) and then when I was pregnant with my daughter, they told me it was retroverted. But I had a scan with my last pregnancy (which ended in mc, so it was an early scan) and she said it looked anteverted now. I suspect that with labour and birth, it's possible for it to shrink back down and be positioned slightly differently. It can't flip back and forth though just randomly and it wouldn't between scans (for the same pregnancy). But it's possible it's differently positioned than with your daughter and they struggled a bit more or you had more gas or constipation that day (which can sort of hide the uterus and make it harder to find and get a clear picture). But in 1st tri, it's quite typical to need to do an internal (again, especially if your bowels are in the way) and I don't think I've ever had a 1st tri scan (and I've had a lot of them now - 2 with my daughter, 3 with my miscarriage, and 2 so far this pregnancy) when they didn't need to do an internal to get a good view.

 

[Jcliff]

Did you have s c section with your other child? I had c section with my son and my dr told me they stitched me up very high which is normal for sections. Making it hard to find baby this time around, I also have tilted uterus

 

[Talia12]

Yes, it's totally possible for your first pregnancy/labour to mess with the positioning of your uterus. Mine has been really retroverted with this pg but was normal when I was pg with my son.

 

[worrying]

Thanks ladies. This was really puzzling me.

No section, my daughter was an alarmingly quick vaginal delivery. Is a tilt likely to make that more tricky this time around?

 

[Talia12]

No - by the time you give birth, your uterus will have long since righted itself. That happens around 10-12 weeks I think.

 

[worrying]

I'm 13 weeks now!

 

[Talia12]

Me too nearly and mine still hasn't quite tipped forward either! I think it can happen later on. Except in extremely rare cases where it doesn't tip forward (a negligible number of women), it'll always tip forward at some point soon. It gets too heavy to stay tilted backwards. At your next appointment ask them to check if you like. But don't worry - it's really common, which is why no one told you it was a concern.