TMI vaginal prolapse and impending labour…

[Cirenzester]

Hello, any advice or handhold for 37 week pregnant woman who feels like her seams have already burst!

Third baby on the way - 5 year gap since DC2. (Only 3 weeks to go) Lots of bulging down of labia (or muscles within) when straining on loo (long time constipation sufferer) and parts of inside vagina seem to be trying to escape when I bear down (yes I looked in a mirror…lots of pale pink weird ridged tissue and something that resembles the thing in the film Alien - can’t be my cervix can it?). Also have some little purple lumps around anus that I was unaware of. Thanks mirror.

Really concerned about labour making all this worse… it took such a long time to recover from two crappy births and then I think my age has undone a lot of the healing (40).
Never really had it investigated, very hard to poo without trying to rearrange my insides…. Hard poo basically pushes into vagina so I have to use finger to help push back (TMI I know). Getting pretty anxious about birth and the aftermath.

Has anyone gone into labour with existing prolapse or these issues and survived/regretted it/wished they’d c-sectioned/miraculously recovered from it all… ?

Yes - talk to your midwife and start taking fybogel now to soften stools. Lumps sounds like start of piles. You don’t want that to get worse. I am 7 months post partum and still need stool softners. I also found women’s health physio helpful after birth.

I have a prolapse and it sounds familiar - if it's a rectocele it can add to your constipation woes. Top tips - don't Google, try not to worry.
Pelvic floor physio was a god send after my first (pregnant with my 3rd and also touching 40)
Good news is how you're feeling now isn't likely to be it, you've got loads of pressure from the baby. It's very unlikely it's your cervix you can see ridged is usually vaginal muscles, I can see mine front and back too.
I also have piles (I'm a delight down there 🤣), it's all linked to your pelvic floor. Try get on top of your constipation if you can, magnesium really helps me.

I had exactly this after DC2. A few months postpartum everything felt so much better.
I did see a pelvic floor physio who diagnosed a rectocele and said as long as I did exercises, maintained an healthy weight and didn’t let myself get constipated it shouldn’t affect my life too much.

It got worse again in pregnancy with DC3 but Labour made it no worse than it already was (if it helps DC3 flew out compared to DC2!)
Immediately post birth it felt okay as I took all of the laxitives for weeks!

Im now 18m PP and it’s very manageable, I hardly notice it most of the time!

Can totally sympathise with your symptoms OP, it's all so uncomfortable. Definitely second seeing a women's health physio!! Your GP or midwife should be able to refer you, or if it's affordable seeing someone privately would be a quicker route to get some advice.

I experienced a uterine prolapse with DC2 around 14 weeks pregnant and my cervix was actually protruding at the entrance of my vagina, I found it pretty horrifying as I had no idea that could happen. I was told after second trimester it resolves as uterus is lifted out of pelvis due to size of baby so not sure it would be your cervix at 37 weeks. But it can happen!

Pelvic floor exercises have really helped my symptoms post natally and I found lots of my symptoms eased in the first few days/weeks after baby was born as all that weight and pressure is gone. I also had rectocele prolapse after DC1 was born via assisted delivery but that's also improved with exercises. So pelvic floor exercises for the rest of your life (sigh) and loads and loads of water and Allbran for the constipation works a treat!

I have a bladder prolapse after DC1.
Pregnant with DC2 and I am opting for ELCS.

I have had a consultant try to convince me to have vaginal birth, saying if things worsen after delivery then deal with after with a gynae referral. But only help I ever got before was just advice to do pelvic floor exercises so I have no faith I would get any other help.

I did quite a bit of research on this and spoke to 3 different consultants and all of the evidence suggests it’s pregnancy that does the damage, not birth.

By all means have a c section if it’s what you want and you feel more comfortable with, but mine wasn’t any worse after 2 vaginal
births. It was pregnancy which did the damage.

Can I ask what kind of magnesium? There seem to be a few versions…
thank you for your reply!

I was also advised that it is generally the pregnancy that causes the damage as opposed to birth. I had an ELCS and definitely don’t want one for my current pregnancy if I can avoid it at all.

I have also suffered horribly with haemorrhoids since my first pregnancy. The joys

Thanks for all your replies. It’s given some hope that maybe it is pregnancy per se that is the trouble - I know this really but it just feels pretty hopeless and then the idea of another long difficult birth… ahhh

Would be lovely to know this one might “fly out” like Anonimouse’s third. 🙏😀

I’m dreading childbirth I guess and the state of my XYZ doesn’t fill me with confidence. Thank you all though. Having another growth/presentation scan this week as baby was breech so a c-section has been mentioned but keen to avoid raising chances of allergies/asthma and all the scary things I keep reading about… google and me are not a good mix.

I just take bog standard magnesium citrate (I take a third of what they advise) from Holland and Barrett and have a coffee on a morning it usually makes me "go" I do still occasionally have to splint (I think I've got a rectocele as well but it's not diagnosed)
It's an osmotic laxative so it absorbs water to make your poo so you need to drink a load of water with it over the day too 👍🏼

I take fybogel and magnesium citrate too. Also third baby and over 40. Agree the labour didn’t make much difference to the prolapse and not being pregnant any more helped. Good luck!

Thanks for clarifying which Magnesium. Had horrible constipation and small amounts of fresh blood in loo over the weekend (I think from internal haemorrhoids) and will mention this at this week’s appointment but good to hear that just the fact of not being pregnant may help matters. Feeling very large and unwieldy generally. Having rock poos clicking around inside and strange collapsing bits not helping me feel particularly strong and ready for childbirth! Appreciate the handholds xx

Just in case anyone reading this in 2025- it is the case that pregnancy can cause pelvic floor ‘damage’ but if looking at prolapse specifically there is a lot of evidence that it is actually birth which causes the damage, not pregnancy. I’ve been told by two midwives and one physio that it is pregnancy but actually the research papers don’t support this and a different physio explained that often they are talking about general pelvic floor weakness not prolapse. Women who have given birth by C-section have same prolapse incidence as general population. Vaginal delivery significantly increases the risk of prolapse comparitcarly particularly if it is an instrumental delivery. I had a C-section first time and second birth was a VBAC which was great but I did develop a mild bladder prolapse. No longer symptomatic but trying to decide which route to take for baby no3.

This study is v interesting pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3178744/