Brisbane fashion designer Yiota Kouzoukas is preparing to give birth. Her first baby is due at the end of January.
The thing is… She doesn’t look like it. Posting a picture of her nine-month tummy to Instagram, the co-owner of Sabo Skirt hardly appears to be carrying at all.
Before the wrath of the internet descends in the tumble of questions and accusations that so often occurs with anything pregnancy related, there is a very real, very difficult reason behind the size of her baby belly.
“For the first four months of my pregnancy, my uterus was retroverted which means that I was growing backwards into my body rather than outwards,” Yiota, 29, told Femail.
This phenomenon occurs in women who have a ‘tipped uterus’, according to AmericanPregnancy.org, where instead of being in a straight vertical position the uterus is tipped backwards towards the back of the pelvis.
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Interesting article but there are a few areas I would disagree with as a professional working in the area. I think to term the retroverted uterus as an anomaly implies something not right when it is a normal variation. About 80% of the time the uterus is anteverted, tilted forward, and 20% retroverted, tilted backwards. Whether the tilt is backwards or forwards is just a variation not an anomaly.
In a small number of cases the uterus is retroverted because of scarring fixing the uterus due to things like endometriosis, pelvic intention or pelvic surgery. Despite what is mentioned in the article childbirth isn't a cause.
The only issue the retroverted uterus will cause in pregnancy is rare, the incarcerated uterus. This occurs where the tilted back uterus gets trapped under the sacral promentry around 3 months preventing the uterus becoming an abdominal organ and will present as urinary retention as the trapped uterus compresses the bladder and the woman is unable to void.
Once the uterus flips up into the pelvis at around 12 weeks it is no longer retroverted or anteverted but has a more axial orientation.
The reason some women appear to have a smaller abdomen when 3 or 4 months and beyond isn't related to a retroverted uterus. Commonest reasons would be a small baby or strong tight abdominal muscles holding the uterus more firmly in the abdomen (mostly seen in first pregnancies)
Hope this opinion isof help
I was lucky enough to be born with two uteruses (uteri?), two cervixes (cervices?) and two vaginas. I also had severe endometriosis. This meant that every month, I had double the period pain. I had it in my pelvis but also in the tops of my legs, particularly in the front. I spent many nights lying in bed as a teenager and in my early 20s, wondering how I was going to get to school or work the next day.
The bleeding was torrential sometimes. Having to change pads every half hour while working as a nurse in A&E, was no joke. My husband and I finally gave up trying for children after six years of marriage when I was 28 and I had all my reproductive organs removed. We adopted a wonderful son and became a happy little family.
Endometriosis is a ghastly disease. I just hope women reading this who have this condition have better luck than I did. Not everyone has it as badly as I did and most women will go on to have their own children. Good luck!
How do you know you had "double the period pain"? How would that be measured??!!!
A double uterus is not two uteruses, just one uterus divided in halves.
I would like to see your medical qualifications because that's precisely what Professor Struan Robinson told me when I first saw him. He was the first doctor in Sydney to embark on IVF. He then X-rayed the whole mess with doctors from all over watching on which wasn't nice but it was still the 70s when patients' rights weren't that important. When I returned to see him, his first words to me were: 'Mrs H., that's certainly a spectacular double uterus!' He asked my permission to use the film at the Sydney Uni medical school because he doesn't ever expect to see this again. The reason for this is that IN EVERY CASE PREVIOUSLY KNOWN, THE UTERUS IS SIMPLY TWO HALVES OF THE SAME WHOLE. IN MY CASE, THERE WERE TWO, THAT'S TWO, ENTIRELY SEPARATE ONES LYING ON THEIR SIDES ON THE FLOOR OF THE PELVIS, ONE ON THE LEFT, ONE ON THE RIGHT. I saw them, so who am I going to believe - you or my lying eyes and a whole gaggle of doctors? You seem a tad jealous. I certainly hope you've never been a member of the medical profession in one capacity or another, as I was for 42 years before retirement, because you have all the empathy of Chopper Reid!