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I told my dr I was feeling the babys head and my cervix and he said it was ok and to make sure my hands were clean hes also been an ob for 39 years! And to the b___st cancer thing you ARE supposed to know how to check your b___sts for lumps didn't your dr teach you that when you got a pap smear?

Also when you are coming up on your due date your cervix comes down you probably cant feel your cervix when your not pregnant but when you are its a different story

Poor Jenny. I hope someone gives her a hug...she sounds like she needs one. I am laughing my a__s of at this woman. "Firstly...furthermore...blah freakin blah, Jenny" You really take things personally...who wants to hear you make yourself sound like a slef-ritious genius? Sometimes it IS amusing though. Hey "Teresa" you sound IDENTICAL to Jenny...you guys write and ridicule people EXACTLY the same! Cool...you should be pen pals! So...to each HER own...I can picture jenny POUNDING away at her computer, her chubby little fingers running a mile a minute with loads of smoke coming out of her ears! I feel for anyone who challenges YOUR ["intelligence"]...<----that's what you call it right? Anyway...to all the women who are kind and non-JUDGEMENTAL...I'm glad I can read your questions, and comments to my questions. Keep asking questions...the more I read from you guys, the more I learn about what I'm going through in pregnancy.

Jenny, I feel sorry for ya girl !! Your one of those people who has to boost her self esteem by looking down on others.................If you don't know ask......and just because you know and Tee does not know , the name calling and belittling was just down right uncivilized, uncoothed,ect. Tell ya what.............It made you look alot more stupid than she.

Jill - just FYI - you can feel your cervix when you are not pregnant - as someone else posted somewhere buried in here it is part of natural family planning to check the position of your cervix as it moves up or down depending on where you are in your cycle.

Just another post from the midwife forum I wanted to share. I still can't stop laughing that it took a doctor years to train about v____al examination. And I fear for his clients. Almost all our midwifery training around VE was about communication with the woman to make it as un-intrusive as possible. Not so much an issue when doing it yourself. I will agree that it takes time and practice to be able to differentiate between a coronal and a parietal suture and the edge of a posterior versus an anterior fontanelle, but surely that is not what is at issue. I am dismayed when a woman tells me she has never felt her own cervix. Pregnancy should not be the first time she is encouraged to do so, but better late than never! Sarah

Thanks EM I didn't know that cause I never tried but I have had my boyfriend hit it before I was pregnant ouch

i am reading all of this and ya'll are a trip! no -one should be made to feel bad because they ask a question out of natural curiosity. I am inclined to believe that by jenny's sarcastic rude responses she has been treated that way in her own life by the people around her. It also seems that most of the writers here are extremely young and explains the responses. This is a forum to supposedly help ppl and so if you can't say something nice, surf elsewhere.

Posted - 26 Apr 2005 : 14:44:39 ---------------------------------------------------------------Just another message from another midwife. Had to share it.----------------- Well, I've been *extensively trained* by the medical establishment on the proper technique for cervical dilatation a__sessment (in nursing school on the ob rotation; and since nurses do as much if not more checking of dilation, I'm a__suming we are similarly trained). The "training" took the five minutes of reading and then learning how to wash your freakin hands, put on sterile gloves, and not smush someone's c___toris with your thumb while you are checking dilation. Okay, that OB's wife's response was hilarious! I wonder if they are also extensively trained in how to check one's pulse? I mean, if you check your carotid pulse with improper technique, you could cut off major circulation to your head and cause yourself to pa__s out. Who knows what sort of permanent damage could occur! Lori

so, teresa.. have you ASKED your doctor about checking yourself, or are you too embarra__sed? i admit that i checked myself before asking my dr., only because i never thought anything of it. and i still dont. and teresa, about infection... and i ask everyone else's opinion on this.. dont you think having s_x would put you at more of a risk of infection than putting clean hands inside your v____a just to check for dilation?? because im pretty sure that a p___s is not as clean as your own hands, after being washed, of course. i agree, ANYTHING you put up there EVER can increase your chances of infection at ANYTIME, but anyone with half a brain would know to wash their hands before doing anything like this. but im sure when you have s_x, you dont make your husband scrub his p___s beforehand. so teresa, come back and tell me what your doctor said AFTER youve asked him.. im not so sure you asked any doctor whatsoever about this before coming here to tell us about how NO doctor would recomend this.. i told my doctor at my last appointment and he said nothing of it, in fact. and jenny, for someone who "doesnt care anymore" about this post, you sure do come back to check a lot....hmmmmm

okay, as i am reading this at 39 weeks and 5 days pregnant with my fourth child i told myself i was not going to get involved since julie and everyone else who believes in knowing your body for yourself have made not only the best arguments...but have never told anyone else what to do...but thinking back to oh...yesterday when a NP (nurse pract_tioner) had her entire freaking hand in my crotch and dug around like someone digging for clams i have to say that from now on i will be checking myself (a suggestion given to me by my female OB) especially since i have had 3 homebirths and i know how to feel it anyways. as for spreading infection...spreading infection to where? to the baby? last time i checked the membranes made thier environment sterile....so as long as your membranes are intact you should be able to check yourself just fine (i know i know i'm repeating what others have already said) perhaps people who feel squemish about doning it should just let thier doc's check....and for those of us who aren't decide for ourselves....Perhaps if women in the US were more informed regarding the nature of thier bodies, pregnancy and birth (instead of being shamed into thinking that we cannot possibly know anything w/o a degree) alot of the problems in our healthcare and insurance would go away. View your OB, midwife whomever, as a PART of your education, and a facilitator for safe and healthy delivery and you are 10 steps ahead of the pack....intervention in the US is killing our babies because we don't wanna know what is going on.

by the way...i forgot to add this....if you cannot move enough to check yourself...perhaps you ought to consider more movement and less sugar...perhaps even not taking that extra helping cause you are eating for 2....moderation ladies...moderation.

Colleen, well put...

Colleen and Toya...what a terrible a__sumption to make saying that your movement is hindered because you have been eating too much sugar and taking extra helpings...are you not aware that everyone carries differently? I have eaten healthy my whole pregnancy yet when I am sitting my preggo belly rests on my lap halfway down to my knees because I am carrying low. Other women are carring high and still can't get "down there" very easy because the baby is pushing into ribs and lungs. Glad to hear you are so flexible and pet_te at the end of your pregnancies!

colleen, thanks for putting everything so well.. you said everything i wanted to say that i couldnt find the words for... but i agree with some of the other women here too, that it IS a little bit hard to reach in there to find the cervix. it all depends on the location of it and, of course, the size of your belly... :) much like you said, women these days are too embarrased to know their own bodies. i figured that if a small army of doctors and nurses had put their hands up there already, why not me? you dont have to have a degree in anything to know how to do it, or to be smart enough to wash your hands to prevent an *infection*... which is unlikely anyways, as long as the membranes were intact. yes, i repeated you, sorry... :).. but its very true!

EM, out of all of that information Colleen typed, what you got out of it was that you have to be pet_te to know your body??? The idea she was trying to convey is that it is sad that women choose to be ignorant about their bodies and it has been due to this ignorance, that medical science has used us as ginea pigs for their laboratory research. As a womanhood, the majority of us rely soley on advanced degrees for our health care, but there needs to be personal responsibility on our parts to be aware of the things going on with our bodies. It is my opinion that physicians are here for the ill...Pregnancy is not an illness, and thus a woman can very well have an una__sisted childbirth as has been practiced since the beginning of man...When a woman doubts her body, that's when most problems set in...the mind is POWERFUL. There should be no such thing as a textbook pregnancy...all experiences are different, just like we all come in different shapes and sizes...So, no I do not agree that all people get big in pregnancy because of over-indulgence...I was agreeing with the meat of Colleen's post which had to do with awareness. I've only gained 20lbs the whole pregnancy, but my Dr's do not mind because I am healthy...great blood pressure, great fetal movement, I have tons of energy, and it is all by the grace of God that I am in such a great condition with this pregnancy...like I said, the mind is powerful...It's time for women to stop relying so heavily on physicians (majority of which are men) for our well-being...It is up to US to take care of ourselves and know what's going on.