September 24, 2012 • 21 mins
How can a woman's uterus fall out of her body? In this episode, Cristen and Caroline explore the risk factors for prolapse, how to treat the condition and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From housetop works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Caroline and I'm Kristin Kristen. Um. So, my friend
(00:22):
Tom used to do stand up comedy. He's a very
funny guy. He used to have radio shows and stuff
like that. And the source of a lot of his
comedy was his family, Um, very kookie bunch, very funny ladies.
And one of his bits was imitating his aunt Martha,
who has a very, very thick Northern accent, and he
(00:43):
would tell this whole story about how Aunt Martha's uterus
fell out, and it was really funny. And I never
really knew it was a thing, or that it had
a name, or that it was common. But apparently Aunt
Martha is not alone and a uterus fallen out. No,
(01:04):
and it's called uterine pro lapse. Yeah, today on the
podcast we are talking about what happens when your uterus
falls out. It can also happen in other areas, and
sometimes it can bring other inside parts outside with it.
(01:26):
And yeah, prolapse is not the most pleasant topic of conversation.
Also not the most pleasant Google image search. Don't don't.
I recommend you not do that. But it is something
that happens. This was coming from a listener requests. A
younger listener actually wrote in because she had a medical
(01:47):
scare and thought that she had pro laps. But it
turned out, thankfully to be something else. But when we
started doing some more research, come to find out prolapse
is something that does happen to a lot of older
women in particular. But let's back up a little bit. Yeah,
what is it? What is it? Well, it's when your
(02:07):
pelvic floor muscles and ligaments stretch and weekend, providing inadequate
support for the uterus if we're talking specifically obviously about
uterine pro lapse, and the uterus will then slip down
into or protrude out of the vagina. Yes, there you go. Yes,
(02:29):
there are several risk factors, most of them have to
do with age, menopause, whether you have had children, and
whether you do a lot of heavy lifting. If all
of those applied to you, watch out for the following symptoms. Um,
there's a sensation of heaviness and pulling in your pelvis tissue,
(02:50):
actually protruding from your vagina. Often urinary problems accompany this condition,
so you might have leakage or urine retention. There's also
low back pain and trouble having bowel movements because the
bowel movements kind of come into play if if your
rectum is involved in the dropping into the vagina. Yeah,
(03:10):
incontinence is one of the first and most common signs
of pro lapse. And then you might also have concerns
such as sensing looseness in the tone of your vaginal
tissue if you are having intercourse um and sometimes symptoms
that are less bothersome in the morning and worse than
as the day goes on. And that's because gravity will
(03:33):
also aggravate these symptoms because it pulls that tissue downward.
So okay, so what is what is the deal with
with this happening to women who have had babies? Like,
why why does this happen? What's going on up in there?
Pregnancy and trauma incurred during childbirth, particularly if you've had
a large baby or a difficult labor and delivery, can
(03:56):
really cause a lot of that muscle weakness and stretching
a the supporting tissues. So that's just another thing that
would have to go through when they're having babies. Yeah,
and a vaginal births in particular are implicated with this.
Doctors and pregnant women have been looking into whether or
not C sections. Elective c sections are the way to
(04:19):
go because it is associated with a lowered risk of
pelvic organ pro laps. That's not to say that it's
completely preventative, UM, but some women are now opting for
they're called maternal choice c sections partially because of the
risk of pro lapse. UM. And just to give you
an idea of how many women experience this, uh, this
(04:41):
is from the Honor Society of Nursing. Approximately nine percent
of US women require surgery for pelvic pro lapse, which
is part of a series of conditions which are referred
to as pelvic floor disorders, and almost twenty four percent
of American women will look experience at least one pelvic
floor disorders such as pro laps in their lifetime. Yeah,
(05:06):
there are a lot of risk factors for this. UM.
We we touched on a few already, but c o
p D even plays apart, which is chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease which ties into the chronic coughing thing. So if
there's a lot of if you've done a lot of
coughing in your lifetime, you could have uterine pro laps. UM.
(05:26):
Also chronic constipation if you've had a lifetime history of
straining on the toilets, this could also affect rectal pro laps.
And obesity is another big factor that doctors are looking
more closely at, and especially for again UH women who
are pregnant and overweight or obese UH doctors might advise
(05:49):
for a c section because of those combined risk factors
for pro laps down the road. UM, and there are
other types of pro lapse aside from uterine pro lapse.
We have rectal pro lapse where it's the lower end
of the colon above the anus gets stretched out and
protrudes out of the anus um. And it is more
(06:11):
common in women. It seems like all of all the
all the varieties of prolapse, the colorful bouquet of prolapse
types that can happen more common in women. Yeah, there's
also bladder pro lapse because in women, the front wall
of the vagina supports the bladder and so that wall
can weaken due to age or bodily stress, and if
(06:34):
it deteriorates enough, the bladder can actually descend into the vagina,
and this type of pro lapse is commonly associated with menopause. Now.
The listener who wrote in requesting an episode on prolapse
was especially concerned because she was outside of the typical
(06:54):
age range where you see this happening, because she was younger.
I think she was in her mid twenties, maybe her
early thirties. But a lot of times, Uh, it affects
post menopausal women who have had more than one vaginal delivery. Uh,
even though it can't affect still women of any age. Yeah.
(07:16):
Part of this might have to do with hormones and
loss of muscle tone associated with aging. And a two
thousand eight Harvard study looked at pelvic organ pro lapse
and wanted to find out over the course of the
reproductive life cycle, who's getting surgery for this, So women
of reproductive age, there's seven per ten thousand women getting it. Uh,
(07:39):
twenty eight point eight percent of those women experienced surgical
complications perrymenopausal women twenty four per ten thousand, post menopausal
thirty one per ten thousand, and in elderly women it's
seventeen per ten thousands, so definitely post menopausal. It's most common,
followed by perrymenopausal and then elderly, but again it can
still happen in ung the younger cohorts as well. Uh.
(08:03):
There's also been research into whether or not there is
a genetic factor to pro lapse. There's an article from
two thousand and ten published in Urology Times Real page
turner talking about how recent studies haven't covered a genetic
component component of both pelvic organ pro laps and stress
(08:24):
urinary in continents, though not from the same chromosome, and
so they're trying to figure out whether or not doctors
could target patients who might have those genetic components for
early prevention, right because they are. They are pretty related.
People who have prolapse issues tend to have in continents
(08:44):
issues also. Now, Kristen mentioned obesity earlier, and it's kind
of touchy is to whether it's a cause or a
related factor. Um. A two thousand four Swedish study found
that obesity is an associated factor for pelvic floor dysfunction,
particularly obesity, not just being overweight, and a January study
(09:07):
from Brown University found that a higher proportion of obese
women reported feeling vaginal bulging compared with women who were
simply overweight. I'm going to go ahead on a side
note and say, I hope this is maybe the only
time in the podcast we have the opportunity to use
the phrase vaginal bulging. Yes, and now back to our
(09:28):
regularly scheduled pro Laps podcast. Um, Yes, six months. This
is still with a Brown University studies six months after
going on a weight loss program. Uh, these participants didn't
find any significant differences in self reported bothersome pro laps symptoms.
(09:48):
So that's why they're not exactly sure whether like what
roles specifically being overweight or a beast might play with us,
because even after they lost the weight, the symptoms didn't
go away. Right. And this ties and closely with the
two thousand nine study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, which
found that yes, again, being overweight or abuses associated with
progression of pelvic organ pro lapse, but weight loss. Just
(10:12):
like in this other study, this more recent study, weight
lass didn't really seem to be significantly associated with the
regression of it. So that suggests that damage to the
pelvic floor related to weight gain could be irreversible if
if they are indeed as closely connected as people suspect well.
And there's also another irreversible kind of contributing factor possibly
(10:33):
to your risk of pro lapse, and that is ethnicity
and race. There have been a number of studies looking
at the prevalence rates among different ethnic groups and they've
found that overall, Hispanic women are at the highest risk
of pro laps and white women pretty much in the middle.
(10:54):
Black women demonstrate the lowest risk for pro lapse. Now,
we mentioned an earlier study about pelvic oregan prolapse surgery
and the age groups. You know that it's more common
in post menopausal women. A Harvard study from two thousand
six looked at two thousand three rates of surgery according
to ethnic groups. They found that between white women, black women,
(11:18):
and women of other races, white women had the most
surgeries for this condition fourteen point eight per ten thousand.
Black women came in second at five point six per
ten thousand, and women of other races and ethnic groups
came in at eight point seven per ten thousand. And
it looks like according to this study, black women, although
(11:38):
they had far fewer surgeries for this condition than white women, did,
they had higher complications. Thirty four point one percent of
Black women who had the surgery had surgical complications versus
nineteen point four percent of white women and twenty seven
point four percent of women of other races, And so
they came to the conclusion that this could be an
issue of race. Racial disparity is access to surgery, whether
(12:03):
you're on public assistance, et cetera. So, speaking of surgery,
what can be done if you know you end up
in this situation where you have these unpleasant things going
on with your pelvic floor muscles. There are self care treatments.
(12:23):
We've talked about kegle exercises before on the podcast, and
those have been shown to strengthen pelvic muscles, maintaining a
healthy weight and avoiding heavy lifting, or a couple of
other things. There's also something called a vaginal pessary, which
is a device that can be either temporary or permanent,
that fits inside the vagina and literally holds the uterus
(12:47):
in place that I don't I don't know what that
looks like, but it sounds uncomfortable, looks like a little
a little ring. It reminded me almost of the neubring
birth control I hope it stays in place. If you
have a temporary one um and like we said, like
we've been talking about this whole time, their surgery is available.
You can have vaginal or abdominal surgery. Your doctor might
(13:07):
recommend a hysterectomy or the use of a tissue graphed,
which doesn't sound comfortable either. And if this kind of
self care is going on, one question that I had
when we were looking into this was what about sex.
I mean, if if all of this stuff is going
on on your insides, it seems like that would totally
(13:27):
make sex out of the question. But in fact, you
can and it is okay to have sex with pro lapse.
This was coming from Dr Oz's website share Care, and
he says it's safe to have sex if you have
pelvic pro lapse, although it may be uncomfortable. And the
(13:48):
reason why the doctor's explained that it was okay was
again going back to this issue of gravity and not
to be too graphic, but when you are standing up,
it pulls that to you down, but when you were
lying back, it will, in the words of one doctor,
go back inside, making it okay to have sex. But
(14:09):
again it might be especially depending on the degree of
the prolaps, it might be a little uncomfortable. Okay, so
it's been deemed safe to have sex, you know when
you have this condition. But if you are one of
the people who had a surgical treatment then involved inserting
mesh into your vagina to hold your uterus in place,
(14:29):
there could be issues. UM. In July, the FDA found
that risks of placing mesh through the vagina to repair
pelvic organ prolapse may outweigh its benefits, and they found
that the most frequently reported complications, in addition to pain
during intercourse and bleeding, where that the mesh can become
exposed or protruded from the vaginal tissue. There's a lot
(14:51):
of pain involved, um, and you might have to have surgeries.
So they suggested that healthcare providers should recognize that prolapse
can be treated without mesh because the whole mesh thing
is a permanent solution, and so that could if you
do want to have sex with this condition, that could
make it more difficult. Now we're talking about options for
(15:14):
prolaps treatment, there's the you know, temporary kinds of things
you can do self care of surgeries. For more permanent options,
but in developing nations, this issue of pro lapse can
actually lead lead women not to the doctor necessarily, but
to being cast out of their house and even out
(15:37):
of their society. Yeah. The United Nations Population Fund has
a section on this. Actually, they say that many women
are abandoned by their husbands and end up with social
outcouts in their community. Like Kristen said, because when these
women experienced this, their mobility is limited and therefore that
makes work, chores and sex nearly impossible, and they end
up having chronic back pain, urinary and continence, things that
(15:59):
might not sidelines someone in the US who has access
to surgery, you know, when surgery is more readily available. Um.
They looked in particular at Nepal, where fertility is very
high and women carry heavy loads on their backs, which
is a bad combination to be honest. They said that
one out of ten women are estimated to suffer from
uterine pro lapse in Nepal. Yeah, and as a result
(16:22):
of an organization called Safe Motherhood and Nepal Federation launched
a Uterine Prolapse Alliance in two thousand seven to raise
understanding about the causes and preventions, and they're working with
the government to provide health programming to address these issues
surrounding UH prolaps. So while this might not have been
(16:43):
the sunniest topic we have ever covered on the podcast,
and frankly not the easiest one to discuss either, again,
I think it's important to address health issues like these
that are not talked about but do affect a lot
of us, not just at home, but a round the world.
Yeah so, and then I mean I didn't Yeah, I
(17:04):
didn't realize how common it was in anyone besides Tom's
aunt Martha. Right, Yeah, I I really I wasn't very
aware of u of much about it until now. And
for the listeners who have made it through this entire
prolapse episode, I applaud you and for that you will
receive listener mail about homeschooling as a palate cleanser. So
(17:28):
if you have any letters so to share with us
mom stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can
send them. And like I said, we've got a couple
of letters here about homeschool I met one here from
Jess and she says she was homeschooled up until the
(17:50):
eighth grade. She says, we my parents moved around a
lot so it's easier to teach us at home rather
than enroll us in a new school every year. We
ordered our school books from the Stay Eights and had
regular school time. Socialization was not a problem since I
have a very large family and we often lived with
other families. My parents are German, and in Germany, homeschooling
is against the law. Parents who wanted to homeschool their
(18:14):
children can count on jail time and or find the
law came into effect to hinder child labor. In Austria,
where my parents settled down after traveling the world, there
is an Austrian word that means compulsory education, which means
children have to be educated, and we had to go
to state school every year and do tests to prove
that we were up to par. After a couple of years,
(18:34):
my parents decided to send my younger siblings to school.
Most didn't have a problem adjusting since they were very young,
and I've also gone to school, but I have to
say I found and still find it very tiring. I'm
used to learning and researching on my own, and in
school everything takes longer. I worked through the material for
a whole school year in three months. This is something
you can't do in a school. Ironically enough, I now
(18:56):
work as a school secretary and get to see the
school system from the other side. So thanks for the
international insight from Jess Okay. Here's a different perspective on
homeschooling from Amelia. She says that she wanted to mention
the fact that some parents choose to homeschool their children
for safety reasons. I'm from l A and it's pretty
well known that public schools and cities this large tend
(19:19):
to be quite violent and potentially unsafe places. So my
brother and I were homeschooled for the first handful of
years of our educations until my mom got a job
teaching at a small local private school, working in exchange
for our tuition. However, even the small private school, though wonderful,
was lacking in a few areas. At what point my
older brother begged to be allowed to attend public school
and my mom finally caved. It only took one day
(19:41):
there for my brother to realize he wasn't going to
be comfortable walking through a metal detector every morning at
eight am and being searched for weapons alongside his classmates
in a place with fourteen foot fences. That resembled a prison.
It's a parent's job to ensure their children are safe
and to keep them from potentially dangerous environments, so it's
not surprising to see more parents choosing to in school
their kids when the local schooling options are so scary,
(20:03):
unless they happen to be well off enough financially to
afford very expensive private schools. All in all, I had
a wonderful childhood, and looking back, I would not trade
my education for any other. I had a small group
of adults who were dedicated to giving me the best
education possible, and while they weren't perfect and I missed
out on a few things, the extra attention that I
received compared to public school friends stuck in classrooms of
(20:23):
thirty plus kids, meant that I got a better grasp
on subjects that were difficult for me, and the overall
success of my education shows every day in my work.
So thank you Amelia for the perspective, and thanks to
everyone who's written in Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot Com
is where you can send your letters, and you can
also find us on Facebook. Like us there and follow
(20:43):
us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast, and you can
also now find us on Tumbler as well, stuff Mom
never told you dot tumbler dot com. And as always,
you can make yourself a little bit smarter during the
week by heading over to our website, It's how stuff
works dot com for more on this and thousands of
(21:05):
other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com brought
to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?
From housetop works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Caroline and I'm Kristin Kristen. Um. So, my friend
(00:22):
Tom used to do stand up comedy. He's a very
funny guy. He used to have radio shows and stuff
like that. And the source of a lot of his
comedy was his family, Um, very kookie bunch, very funny ladies.
And one of his bits was imitating his aunt Martha,
who has a very, very thick Northern accent, and he
(00:43):
would tell this whole story about how Aunt Martha's uterus
fell out, and it was really funny. And I never
really knew it was a thing, or that it had
a name, or that it was common. But apparently Aunt
Martha is not alone and a uterus fallen out. No,
(01:04):
and it's called uterine pro lapse. Yeah, today on the
podcast we are talking about what happens when your uterus
falls out. It can also happen in other areas, and
sometimes it can bring other inside parts outside with it.
(01:26):
And yeah, prolapse is not the most pleasant topic of conversation.
Also not the most pleasant Google image search. Don't don't.
I recommend you not do that. But it is something
that happens. This was coming from a listener requests. A
younger listener actually wrote in because she had a medical
(01:47):
scare and thought that she had pro laps. But it
turned out, thankfully to be something else. But when we
started doing some more research, come to find out prolapse
is something that does happen to a lot of older
women in particular. But let's back up a little bit. Yeah,
what is it? What is it? Well, it's when your
(02:07):
pelvic floor muscles and ligaments stretch and weekend, providing inadequate
support for the uterus if we're talking specifically obviously about
uterine pro lapse, and the uterus will then slip down
into or protrude out of the vagina. Yes, there you go. Yes,
(02:29):
there are several risk factors, most of them have to
do with age, menopause, whether you have had children, and
whether you do a lot of heavy lifting. If all
of those applied to you, watch out for the following symptoms. Um,
there's a sensation of heaviness and pulling in your pelvis tissue,
(02:50):
actually protruding from your vagina. Often urinary problems accompany this condition,
so you might have leakage or urine retention. There's also
low back pain and trouble having bowel movements because the
bowel movements kind of come into play if if your
rectum is involved in the dropping into the vagina. Yeah,
(03:10):
incontinence is one of the first and most common signs
of pro lapse. And then you might also have concerns
such as sensing looseness in the tone of your vaginal
tissue if you are having intercourse um and sometimes symptoms
that are less bothersome in the morning and worse than
as the day goes on. And that's because gravity will
(03:33):
also aggravate these symptoms because it pulls that tissue downward.
So okay, so what is what is the deal with
with this happening to women who have had babies? Like,
why why does this happen? What's going on up in there?
Pregnancy and trauma incurred during childbirth, particularly if you've had
a large baby or a difficult labor and delivery, can
(03:56):
really cause a lot of that muscle weakness and stretching
a the supporting tissues. So that's just another thing that
would have to go through when they're having babies. Yeah,
and a vaginal births in particular are implicated with this.
Doctors and pregnant women have been looking into whether or
not C sections. Elective c sections are the way to
(04:19):
go because it is associated with a lowered risk of
pelvic organ pro laps. That's not to say that it's
completely preventative, UM, but some women are now opting for
they're called maternal choice c sections partially because of the
risk of pro lapse. UM. And just to give you
an idea of how many women experience this, uh, this
(04:41):
is from the Honor Society of Nursing. Approximately nine percent
of US women require surgery for pelvic pro lapse, which
is part of a series of conditions which are referred
to as pelvic floor disorders, and almost twenty four percent
of American women will look experience at least one pelvic
floor disorders such as pro laps in their lifetime. Yeah,
(05:06):
there are a lot of risk factors for this. UM.
We we touched on a few already, but c o
p D even plays apart, which is chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease which ties into the chronic coughing thing. So if
there's a lot of if you've done a lot of
coughing in your lifetime, you could have uterine pro laps. UM.
(05:26):
Also chronic constipation if you've had a lifetime history of
straining on the toilets, this could also affect rectal pro laps.
And obesity is another big factor that doctors are looking
more closely at, and especially for again UH women who
are pregnant and overweight or obese UH doctors might advise
(05:49):
for a c section because of those combined risk factors
for pro laps down the road. UM, and there are
other types of pro lapse aside from uterine pro lapse.
We have rectal pro lapse where it's the lower end
of the colon above the anus gets stretched out and
protrudes out of the anus um. And it is more
(06:11):
common in women. It seems like all of all the
all the varieties of prolapse, the colorful bouquet of prolapse
types that can happen more common in women. Yeah, there's
also bladder pro lapse because in women, the front wall
of the vagina supports the bladder and so that wall
can weaken due to age or bodily stress, and if
(06:34):
it deteriorates enough, the bladder can actually descend into the vagina,
and this type of pro lapse is commonly associated with menopause. Now.
The listener who wrote in requesting an episode on prolapse
was especially concerned because she was outside of the typical
(06:54):
age range where you see this happening, because she was younger.
I think she was in her mid twenties, maybe her
early thirties. But a lot of times, Uh, it affects
post menopausal women who have had more than one vaginal delivery. Uh,
even though it can't affect still women of any age. Yeah.
(07:16):
Part of this might have to do with hormones and
loss of muscle tone associated with aging. And a two
thousand eight Harvard study looked at pelvic organ pro lapse
and wanted to find out over the course of the
reproductive life cycle, who's getting surgery for this, So women
of reproductive age, there's seven per ten thousand women getting it. Uh,
(07:39):
twenty eight point eight percent of those women experienced surgical
complications perrymenopausal women twenty four per ten thousand, post menopausal
thirty one per ten thousand, and in elderly women it's
seventeen per ten thousands, so definitely post menopausal. It's most common,
followed by perrymenopausal and then elderly, but again it can
still happen in ung the younger cohorts as well. Uh.
(08:03):
There's also been research into whether or not there is
a genetic factor to pro lapse. There's an article from
two thousand and ten published in Urology Times Real page
turner talking about how recent studies haven't covered a genetic
component component of both pelvic organ pro laps and stress
(08:24):
urinary in continents, though not from the same chromosome, and
so they're trying to figure out whether or not doctors
could target patients who might have those genetic components for
early prevention, right because they are. They are pretty related.
People who have prolapse issues tend to have in continents
(08:44):
issues also. Now, Kristen mentioned obesity earlier, and it's kind
of touchy is to whether it's a cause or a
related factor. Um. A two thousand four Swedish study found
that obesity is an associated factor for pelvic floor dysfunction,
particularly obesity, not just being overweight, and a January study
(09:07):
from Brown University found that a higher proportion of obese
women reported feeling vaginal bulging compared with women who were
simply overweight. I'm going to go ahead on a side
note and say, I hope this is maybe the only
time in the podcast we have the opportunity to use
the phrase vaginal bulging. Yes, and now back to our
(09:28):
regularly scheduled pro Laps podcast. Um, Yes, six months. This
is still with a Brown University studies six months after
going on a weight loss program. Uh, these participants didn't
find any significant differences in self reported bothersome pro laps symptoms.
(09:48):
So that's why they're not exactly sure whether like what
roles specifically being overweight or a beast might play with us,
because even after they lost the weight, the symptoms didn't
go away. Right. And this ties and closely with the
two thousand nine study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, which
found that yes, again, being overweight or abuses associated with
progression of pelvic organ pro lapse, but weight loss. Just
(10:12):
like in this other study, this more recent study, weight
lass didn't really seem to be significantly associated with the
regression of it. So that suggests that damage to the
pelvic floor related to weight gain could be irreversible if
if they are indeed as closely connected as people suspect well.
And there's also another irreversible kind of contributing factor possibly
(10:33):
to your risk of pro lapse, and that is ethnicity
and race. There have been a number of studies looking
at the prevalence rates among different ethnic groups and they've
found that overall, Hispanic women are at the highest risk
of pro laps and white women pretty much in the middle.
(10:54):
Black women demonstrate the lowest risk for pro lapse. Now,
we mentioned an earlier study about pelvic oregan prolapse surgery
and the age groups. You know that it's more common
in post menopausal women. A Harvard study from two thousand
six looked at two thousand three rates of surgery according
to ethnic groups. They found that between white women, black women,
(11:18):
and women of other races, white women had the most
surgeries for this condition fourteen point eight per ten thousand.
Black women came in second at five point six per
ten thousand, and women of other races and ethnic groups
came in at eight point seven per ten thousand. And
it looks like according to this study, black women, although
(11:38):
they had far fewer surgeries for this condition than white women, did,
they had higher complications. Thirty four point one percent of
Black women who had the surgery had surgical complications versus
nineteen point four percent of white women and twenty seven
point four percent of women of other races, And so
they came to the conclusion that this could be an
issue of race. Racial disparity is access to surgery, whether
(12:03):
you're on public assistance, et cetera. So, speaking of surgery,
what can be done if you know you end up
in this situation where you have these unpleasant things going
on with your pelvic floor muscles. There are self care treatments.
(12:23):
We've talked about kegle exercises before on the podcast, and
those have been shown to strengthen pelvic muscles, maintaining a
healthy weight and avoiding heavy lifting, or a couple of
other things. There's also something called a vaginal pessary, which
is a device that can be either temporary or permanent,
that fits inside the vagina and literally holds the uterus
(12:47):
in place that I don't I don't know what that
looks like, but it sounds uncomfortable, looks like a little
a little ring. It reminded me almost of the neubring
birth control I hope it stays in place. If you
have a temporary one um and like we said, like
we've been talking about this whole time, their surgery is available.
You can have vaginal or abdominal surgery. Your doctor might
(13:07):
recommend a hysterectomy or the use of a tissue graphed,
which doesn't sound comfortable either. And if this kind of
self care is going on, one question that I had
when we were looking into this was what about sex.
I mean, if if all of this stuff is going
on on your insides, it seems like that would totally
(13:27):
make sex out of the question. But in fact, you
can and it is okay to have sex with pro lapse.
This was coming from Dr Oz's website share Care, and
he says it's safe to have sex if you have
pelvic pro lapse, although it may be uncomfortable. And the
(13:48):
reason why the doctor's explained that it was okay was
again going back to this issue of gravity and not
to be too graphic, but when you are standing up,
it pulls that to you down, but when you were
lying back, it will, in the words of one doctor,
go back inside, making it okay to have sex. But
(14:09):
again it might be especially depending on the degree of
the prolaps, it might be a little uncomfortable. Okay, so
it's been deemed safe to have sex, you know when
you have this condition. But if you are one of
the people who had a surgical treatment then involved inserting
mesh into your vagina to hold your uterus in place,
(14:29):
there could be issues. UM. In July, the FDA found
that risks of placing mesh through the vagina to repair
pelvic organ prolapse may outweigh its benefits, and they found
that the most frequently reported complications, in addition to pain
during intercourse and bleeding, where that the mesh can become
exposed or protruded from the vaginal tissue. There's a lot
(14:51):
of pain involved, um, and you might have to have surgeries.
So they suggested that healthcare providers should recognize that prolapse
can be treated without mesh because the whole mesh thing
is a permanent solution, and so that could if you
do want to have sex with this condition, that could
make it more difficult. Now we're talking about options for
(15:14):
prolaps treatment, there's the you know, temporary kinds of things
you can do self care of surgeries. For more permanent options,
but in developing nations, this issue of pro lapse can
actually lead lead women not to the doctor necessarily, but
to being cast out of their house and even out
(15:37):
of their society. Yeah. The United Nations Population Fund has
a section on this. Actually, they say that many women
are abandoned by their husbands and end up with social
outcouts in their community. Like Kristen said, because when these
women experienced this, their mobility is limited and therefore that
makes work, chores and sex nearly impossible, and they end
up having chronic back pain, urinary and continence, things that
(15:59):
might not sidelines someone in the US who has access
to surgery, you know, when surgery is more readily available. Um.
They looked in particular at Nepal, where fertility is very
high and women carry heavy loads on their backs, which
is a bad combination to be honest. They said that
one out of ten women are estimated to suffer from
uterine pro lapse in Nepal. Yeah, and as a result
(16:22):
of an organization called Safe Motherhood and Nepal Federation launched
a Uterine Prolapse Alliance in two thousand seven to raise
understanding about the causes and preventions, and they're working with
the government to provide health programming to address these issues
surrounding UH prolaps. So while this might not have been
(16:43):
the sunniest topic we have ever covered on the podcast,
and frankly not the easiest one to discuss either, again,
I think it's important to address health issues like these
that are not talked about but do affect a lot
of us, not just at home, but a round the world.
Yeah so, and then I mean I didn't Yeah, I
(17:04):
didn't realize how common it was in anyone besides Tom's
aunt Martha. Right, Yeah, I I really I wasn't very
aware of u of much about it until now. And
for the listeners who have made it through this entire
prolapse episode, I applaud you and for that you will
receive listener mail about homeschooling as a palate cleanser. So
(17:28):
if you have any letters so to share with us
mom stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can
send them. And like I said, we've got a couple
of letters here about homeschool I met one here from
Jess and she says she was homeschooled up until the
(17:50):
eighth grade. She says, we my parents moved around a
lot so it's easier to teach us at home rather
than enroll us in a new school every year. We
ordered our school books from the Stay Eights and had
regular school time. Socialization was not a problem since I
have a very large family and we often lived with
other families. My parents are German, and in Germany, homeschooling
is against the law. Parents who wanted to homeschool their
(18:14):
children can count on jail time and or find the
law came into effect to hinder child labor. In Austria,
where my parents settled down after traveling the world, there
is an Austrian word that means compulsory education, which means
children have to be educated, and we had to go
to state school every year and do tests to prove
that we were up to par. After a couple of years,
(18:34):
my parents decided to send my younger siblings to school.
Most didn't have a problem adjusting since they were very young,
and I've also gone to school, but I have to
say I found and still find it very tiring. I'm
used to learning and researching on my own, and in
school everything takes longer. I worked through the material for
a whole school year in three months. This is something
you can't do in a school. Ironically enough, I now
(18:56):
work as a school secretary and get to see the
school system from the other side. So thanks for the
international insight from Jess Okay. Here's a different perspective on
homeschooling from Amelia. She says that she wanted to mention
the fact that some parents choose to homeschool their children
for safety reasons. I'm from l A and it's pretty
well known that public schools and cities this large tend
(19:19):
to be quite violent and potentially unsafe places. So my
brother and I were homeschooled for the first handful of
years of our educations until my mom got a job
teaching at a small local private school, working in exchange
for our tuition. However, even the small private school, though wonderful,
was lacking in a few areas. At what point my
older brother begged to be allowed to attend public school
and my mom finally caved. It only took one day
(19:41):
there for my brother to realize he wasn't going to
be comfortable walking through a metal detector every morning at
eight am and being searched for weapons alongside his classmates
in a place with fourteen foot fences. That resembled a prison.
It's a parent's job to ensure their children are safe
and to keep them from potentially dangerous environments, so it's
not surprising to see more parents choosing to in school
their kids when the local schooling options are so scary,
(20:03):
unless they happen to be well off enough financially to
afford very expensive private schools. All in all, I had
a wonderful childhood, and looking back, I would not trade
my education for any other. I had a small group
of adults who were dedicated to giving me the best
education possible, and while they weren't perfect and I missed
out on a few things, the extra attention that I
received compared to public school friends stuck in classrooms of
(20:23):
thirty plus kids, meant that I got a better grasp
on subjects that were difficult for me, and the overall
success of my education shows every day in my work.
So thank you Amelia for the perspective, and thanks to
everyone who's written in Mom's Stuff at Discovery dot Com
is where you can send your letters, and you can
also find us on Facebook. Like us there and follow
(20:43):
us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast, and you can
also now find us on Tumbler as well, stuff Mom
never told you dot tumbler dot com. And as always,
you can make yourself a little bit smarter during the
week by heading over to our website, It's how stuff
works dot com for more on this and thousands of
(21:05):
other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com brought
to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
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