Anyone else check their own cervix for softening/dilation?

[TheBreastmilksOnMe]

I'm just curious really, I'm 38 weeks pregnant and I thought, why not? I wanted to take the mystery out if it and own my own body I guess so I read up about it, where to find it, what to expect etc and it makes me feel a bit more empowered and familiar with my own body.

I check every few nights to feel for changes and to familiarise myself with my own quirks and hopefully I will get a heads up on when labour might start!

When I do eventually go into labour I'm hoping that I will be able to gauge when to go into hospital by how dilated I am (providing my waters are still intact)

I WISH I could still reach!! very impressed!

So how do you tell? Do you have a link? I'm 37 weeks and would like to know a bit more.

Just type into Google 'checking own cervix' and you should get tonnes of links to various websites. It's quite a popular method for gauging ovulation apparently!

Just make sure you have clean hands, short nails and be gentle

scared I am seriously massive, to the point where people point and stare and I find the best way I can reach is when I'm semi-reclined on my pillows in bed and sort of go around my bump. I just use my middle finger and have noticed that my cervix has dropped lower this past week so it's much easier to reach! It feels like the end of my nose with a dimple in the middle which I think is the os.

Rowboat here

Thanks Breastmilk. I'll have a good read of that.

I did! I felt around daily from 37 weeks , then when I went into labour I could feel how dialated I was and the bag of waters pushing through the cervix . It was amazing it allowed me to really start taking control of my labour and also reassured me that I wasn't going to take a trip to the birth centre to be turned away as "not in labour "

That sounds amazing paging and kind of why I'm doing it. It just feels good to 'know' my own body and I think women should be taught to do it, if they feel like it. I can understand it not being everyone's cup of tea but for me it removes a lot of the mystery of childbirth and dilation etc.

I have no idea about checking your own cervix, but I would say that you should be careful about placing too much weight on dilation. Many women dilate irregularly, or to 3cm then stay that way for a long time or whatever. Repeat internals can be very discouraging to many labouring women, and doing it to yourself could have the same effect. So great if it helps you, but don't get tooooo focused on it. I suspect that this is why it isn't routinely taught

i found it, thanks breastmilk. Hopefully it will help me take control too. Im a bit of a control freak about my own life and hate this uncertainty. I know it'll probably not make a difference in how it goes but if I have some awareness of what's happening, it should help!

Ha xpost Penguins. I know it might not mean a thing in the grand scheme of things, but it's just an added extra bit of information.

I agree with internals being done by strangers being discouraging but I do believe being familiar with one's own body can only be a positive thing penguins as for too long now labouring women have had their power taken away from them by the medical establishment and are treated like baby carrying vessels and not humans. I do think that anything that enables a woman to familiarise herself with the workings of her own body is empowering and by God we need to claw back some power and autonomy when it comes to giving birth.

I agree with that entirely Breastmilk

But I also think that realising that you are still 3cm 12 hours after you last checked yourself would be similarly discouraging.

I'm actually not that pro-internals at all, unless there is a specific medical need to know the point you have reached in labour at that moment (e.g. to decide whether to move to a section, to check if you aren't sure you are ready to push). As my current midwife said to me (thankfully she feels similarly to me so is quite supportive) "all an internal tells you is how dilated you are when you do the internal. Not anything about what will happen in the future". I didn't have any with no.2 (though for slightly different reasons) and don't plan to this time with no. 3.

I am totally for empowerment and I support anyone doing anything (safe) that makes them feel more in control. But equally I think one has to keep the value of any form of internal firmly in perspective.

So you want to know the grossest thing I have been told this preg? My dad (admittedly at the time was a junior doc on obstetrics ward) checked my mums cervix and gave her a membrane sweep!!! Oh god. The very idea of the rents doing that made me want to vom vom vom.

Lol...how old are you MummyLuce?

I did with DC1. Funny thing - at 36+6 I checked it as usual after having bad stomach cramps, and could feel it was closed in the same way it always had been for the last few weeks, so I felt sure it wasn't labour.

Went downstairs after some time on the toilet trying and failing to get out whatever I thought was in there, thought the pains were a bit much but whatever. Pregnancy hurts in new and annoying ways after all. Wrote a few emails, and felt a small trickle, but thought I'd wet myself. Cleaned up then went to lie down on the bed for a bit, complaining that whatever DH put in the curry the night before was horrific. Decided to lie down on the bed to ease the cramps.

Few minutes later a midwife shows up for her scheduled appointment to talk about a homebirth. DH says I'm upstairs on the bed in pain unable to come down.. things had got a lot worse in the last 5 minutes. She comes upstairs, takes one look at me, asks to examine me.. I agree but tell her I checked not 20 minutes ago and it was closed and I was sure of that and surely labour shouldn't feel like a dodgy curry?

I was 7cm. Ambulance was called (I was 6 hours before the cut-off for homebirths) and DC1 arrived not long after getting to the hospital with me complaining bitterly most of the way whilst off my head on gas and air that it wasn't supposed to happen "like on EastEnders" and where was my 48 hour first time labour I was told I would get gone?

So. Just saying! It can be a tool, but it can be completely misleading and useless!

He wasn't offering to do your sweep too was he MummyLuce??!