back labor question... just curious.

[caudex]

Not pregnant or going to be anytime soon, but there's something I've wondered about since my last doctor's visit, and you all can probably answer it for me.

A few months ago I went to my first gyn visit since I was 18 (THAT was a horrific experience-- incredible pain and she told me if I ever wanted to have children I'd have to get over it.) and the nurse was lovely and compassionate and chatty. She informed me that I have a tilted uterus (is it retrograde? retroactive? retrosomething.) and that she imagined that I must have pretty bad period cramps in my back as a result. This is true.

What I've wondered since, is this-- since menstrual cramps are contractions, and labor pains are stronger contractions, if I experience back cramps during my period due to the tilt, will I therefore inevitably experience back labor?

Probably silly, but I can't help being nosey about my body. TIA!

[Mosaic]

Nope. Your uterus tips forward and moves out of the pelvis when it's full of baby, generally by 15 weeks. Back labor is more a function of the baby's position inside your uterus.

[savithny]

It is true that your uterus tips up and out of the backwards position as it fills.

(although there is a very rare situation where it doesn't tilt out in time and gts snagged when its time to pop up. VERY rare).

However, I have a tilted uterus as well, and I had back labor with both babies. Only one of those babies was posterior, too -- the first one. With that labor I felt things *only* in my back. No tightening on my belly at all, the entire time. My 2nd baby was not posterior as far as I know, but I still felt it all as waves of back cramps. That time I could at least tell something was going on in front, too.

BUT -- FWIW, neither was horrible. When people say "back labor" they say it with awe and dread, and for me it was not really all that. It just meant I felt waves of a dull backache that rose to be less dull and then faded. It wasn't unbearable at all.

So I don't know if I had that because my uterus is usually tilted, or if my uterus is tilted AND I had back labor because of some third thing going on in my pelvis (if the two are both results of something, rather than one causing the other)

[Astraia]

My SIL has a tipped uterus or retro-whatever uterus. With her first she had backlabour and he was posterior.

Her second two- same position, same retroverted uterus- no backlabour.

Even me, with a posterior baby, I had no backlabour.

Every pregnancy and every baby is so different, that just because such-and-such is USUALLY the case doesn't mean it will be for you.

Good luck!

[callieollie]

I have a tipped uterus too and always used to get my menstrual cramps in my back and down my legs. With my first baby, I had HORRIBLE back labor. 28 hours long, no breaks in between, and intense pain in my back and down my legs (particularly during pushing is when my legs really hurt). He was most likely posterior. My second baby was not posterior and I had no back labor and an easy 3 1/2 hour birth. I did do hypnobabies with my second so I don't know if that was one of the reasons the births were so different but I do think that each baby and each birth can just differ a whole lot!

[Mrs.Floyd]

I also have a tilted uterus and had back labor w/ my DS. Honestly, it was not really as bad as I was afraid it would be - it was perfectly manageable as long as I was up, walking about, able to use a wall for support when a contraction hit - and there's this wonderful counter-pressure that the nurses, my mom, and DH did for me that really helped during the contractions. The only time it got bad for me was after 22 hours when I was put on Pitocin and stuck in bed, which made the contractions so strong with very very very little break in between, and me being unable to move around as I had been doing to deal with my contractions. So IF you do have back labor, I'd say just do everything you can to be up and moving around. It helps move your labor along anyway, and gives you move options for coping.