To ask if your post birth vagina looks very different?

[yadayadayesokay]

I gave birth 2 years ago and had forceps & an episiotomy. It was very traumatic and nobody examined me afterwards, I didn’t push for anyone to as I didn’t want anyone going near me.

Now I’m due to give birth again and thought I would have a look down there with a mirror, and wow it looks fucking disgusting. Sorry for TMI but while my labia looks the same, everything underneath looks rearranged, swirly and bumpy. It looks like an alien vagina.

Does anyone else look so different afterwards or is this very unusual?

Childbirths nothing you want to see what herpes does to it .....😳
Lost all the inner labia and have serious scarring it’s an absolute mess

Not sure what we are supposed to aspire to in groin "aesthetics".

Even without childbirth the variation in "normal" appearance varies a great deal.
Given the trauma and tissue trauma of childbirth are we still supposed to look like pre pubecent girls?

Please don't judge ourselves like this- it's so unhelpful.
And for comparison look at your partners genitalia as he lies asleep naked on a hot day.
Far more outard display- but I don't hear men talk of all the "untidiness"

@JinglingHellsBells

when in God's name are women going to know the right names for their bodies?

Alright, calm down

What you can see is your vulva.

And the entrance to your vagina

It seems you have misunderstood. A couple of posters have been very clear that their labia are parted and they can see INTO their vagina. Or "the entrance to their vagina" if you will.

They arent confused about which body part they are seeing - you are confused about what they are describing.

Mines the same apart from a scar. If you feel pain then it cant be right.
After my first birth, the scar from the tear never healed properly. It was painful for a long time and still very tender until my second birth 18months later. I managed to have sex, but it was weird and uncomfortable, sometimes painful. I had the scar checked several times and was always told it looks like its fully healed, they couldnt do anything and told me to give it time.
I had 3rd degree tearing again the second time around and they must have stitched it up much better. No pain whatsoever after a few weeks.
My guess is, if there is pain something is wrong.

Yes you are right Speak Out, good point. Yet again women feel they have to please men

I haven't ever given birth but I have had three surgeries down there (like on the outside for a big growth/cyst between one of my labia) and I have a lovely extra 'hole' down there now which leaks now and again (it's supposed to be a drainage channel to stop another cyst) and some scarring (not sure really how bad the scarring is in the grand scheme of things as I have a skewed view of it because of the way the surgery made me feel afterwards - hubby says it's not that bad). After my second surgery I got really anxious and paranoid and actually really down about how it looked down there but to be honest now I think about it I had actually never looked down there before I had all these problems so, aside from the scar which definitely wasn't there before, I don't have anything to compare with as I don't know what it looked like before. A gynaecologist mentioned this to me also - that a lot of women don't really look at their vagina in detail the way i was post-surgery (on my back with a magnified mirror lol). If you're getting pain or even if you just want some reassurance about how everything looks I would see your GP - they'll have seen so many vaginas that if they say it looks fine I'd take a bit of reassurance from that (but push for a gynae referral if you really feel like something is not right).

I really regret reading this thread my first is due in the summer and I have always been pretty proud of my "neat and tidy" vulva/fanny/minge

Will be gutted if it ends up like a chewed up ham sandwich

So everyone claiming that I cannot see my vagina...

Are you sure?
My perineum is non existent. The entrance to my vagina is a cavern allowing me to see a fair way up. I can't use tampons as I once could. Are you still sure I can't see my vagina?

I'm gobsmacked that anyone would look. I'm not sure I ever looked before I had children and I certainly don't want to now after all these descriptions

Jingling.

Squatting over a light up mirror I can see my fucking vagina. I am fully aware of where my fucking vagina is. Maybe not much of it. But.i can bloody see it.

I can also see my fucking vagina when I send dp down armed with the power light off his bike and my phone to snap me a pic of my poor, bashed VAGINA which now resembles the.last.trifle in the shop.

Now piss off banging on about it along with all the other goady fuckers and leave mine and everyone else's vagina alone and concentrate on your own.

OP, if it’s any help, I’ve seen hundreds of women’s genitalia pre and post birth and late pregnancy also really alters the appearance of the area. Additional blood flow and the weight and pressure of the baby cause swelling and engorgement. Really- don’t look!

Best to stop dwelling on the appearance really. However, do mention the pain when you are in labour and if you need sutures. Anecdotally, I was uncomfortable after an episiotomy with my first baby and it was completely better after being sutured after second baby and a second degree tear.

Best wishes.

I also had an episiotomy and ended up with quite a lot of internal stitches too and forceps.

So, it's fair to say that I went from being reasonably neat down there, to pretty baggy, lots of hanging skin and bumpy

1 c section and 7 vaginal births later....nope...not going there! Know I have a bit of a prolapse 😏 & at last smear nurse told me I got the prize for "easiest to find cervix 🙄🤣" DH still happy with the set up so...

The worst thing I heard was after birth
“Does it look like mince skirt after a few days over’

XH used to say it looked like a tin of corned beef (1 birth) DH says it's beautiful (2 more births).

I had to have reconstruction after DC2 and am just glad that it's all statues together not really bothered what it looks like.

I never looked at my vulva pre childbirth.
After my first which involved a tear and stitches DP told me it looked 'fine'
After the second I did have a look myself having found DP's descriptive skills somewhat lacking and although I could see the scar where I torn that time it in fact looked.....fine.
Since the third and yet another tear with stitches I still think it looks fine and current DP tells me its beautiful.

After first baby episiotomy sex was painful had a very bumpy scar. A doctor did it. After second baby a midwife did it and hallelujah the pain and bumps were gone.

There is a poster somewhere that shows lots of pictures of many different ones. Sure someone can find it who is clever on here.

Mine doesn't look noticeably different. However as we're on the topic, I have noticed that my inner labia get bigger during pregnancy, shrink away to nothing after giving birth for a few weeks, and then return to normal. I became pregnant 6 months pp and yep it looks to be the same again. Strange.

So I was 16 when I gave birth to an 8lb 11oz baby who basically ripped me to pieces and detached one of my labia minora. Oh the stretch mark's! It's all been rearranged and I'd be extremely nervous if I had a new partner.

Anyone else have stringy labia? Like a bit of cheap chewed steak

FoamingAtTheUterus You okay love? Are you always so angry? Maybe you need to change your name to FoamingAtTheMouth.

Seriously, that sort of outburst is a bit worrying.

We cannot see 4 inches inside our fannies.

Now piss off banging on about it along with all the other goady fuckers and leave mine and everyone else's vagina alone and concentrate on your own.

This is why I LOVE MN! Always good for a giggle.

(Rushes off to play with my own.)

I've honestly never dared look. I've had 4 children but could t bring myself to look after the first. I know from when I put tampons in that a bit of my flap is missing though. I also know I am ridiculous.

If you're due to give birth again soon, you might just be looking a bit 'angry' down there anyway, at least this is the case for me!

I'm sure it might look a mess in your eyes but I am 100% sure whatever you're seeing is normal, and I doubt your partner would see it in the way you do.

In terms of the pain you've mentioned you having during sex, there could be a lot more to this than your vagina/vulva being 'wrong' physically, it may well be you're tensing during sex which is causing the pain, or you're experiencing some nerve pain which has nothing to do with whether there's alien bits or not. It might be worth reading up on Vulvodynia and see whether it rings any bells for you, if so, and either way really, get yourself to the doctor to see where you can go from here, as you shouldn't have to put up with painful sex. Might be a referral to women's physio, I myself went through psycho-sexual counselling with my husband and we both found it really helpful.

My vagina seems fine but my anus is another story😬😭 (4th degree tear)