4 Causes of Cervix Pain
The cervix should not be painful to touch unless there is a painful stimulus applied to it. Yes, you heard that correctly.
You, may be thinking what about pap smears? Those are uncomfortable. Well scraping your cervix could be a painful stimulus depending on how forceful the practitioner is. However, with regular touch like sweeping for cervical mucus or finding the position should not elicit pain. Touching it with a cup or tampon should not be painful. Even during sex, if your partner is long or you touch it with a pleasure device, it shouldn’t be painful unless it was a forceful stimulus, just like hitting your shin or stubbing your toe.
So why does the cervix get a bad rap for pain? To begin let’s take a look at the anatomy.
The cervix is the upper most or apex tissue of your pelvic floor. It connects the vagina to the uterus, is connected to the pelvic side walls through cardinal ligaments and to the sacrum through uterosacral ligaments. It is the cornerstone that stabilizes the fascia of the pelvis.
The cervix is also a reflexology point to the heart and takes on many of the same characteristics as the heart chakra. The center of compassion, love, empathy, and forgiveness. Essentially the health of your cervix plays a role in the health of the pelvic floor. Not only physical health but also emotional health of the cervix.
When the health of your cervix is compromised you may experience physical symptoms like:
changes in cervical mucus
pain with penetration,
painful periods,
cervix insufficiency during pregnancy,
vaginal pressure,
incontinence,
pelvic/back/hip pain and
can impact baby position during pregnancy.
And the most extreme, you may develop irregularities in the cells that could develop into cancer.
These symptoms don’t need to begin with the cervix. They may start with emotional stress or other trauma, pelvic floor injury, surgery, etc. Then over time expand beyond the original source. There are four sources that have the potential to cause changes in the cervical, which are genetics, emotional trauma, pelvic floor injury/birth, and scarring/adhesions.
Genetics
Your genetics plays a role in the health of the cervix support structure tissue, aka the ligaments and fascia that hold the cervix up. The connective tissue that makes up the ligaments and fascia has two types of fibers, elastin and collagen. When the cellular building blocks of these fibers is weak, they provide less support, not only in the flexibility but the stability of the ligaments and fascia.
In these cases you may notice other joints are more flexible or hypermobile or really bendy. You are prone to joint and connective tissue injury, like diastasis recti, if you’ve ever been pregnant.
A restrospective [observation of past information] study on cervix insufficiency and the pelvic floor by a team of Docs at the Cleveland Medical Center leads them to believe that “the molecular-based tissue changes in the cervix and pelvic support are actually more important than the tissue damage that occurs with vaginal delivery.”
If the support structures are not strong enough to over power the forces being put on the cervix, there can be more movement causing torsion/twisting and your pelvic floor muscles will tense up to provide extra support. Providing the essential building blocks for strong connective tissue with a nutrient dense diet including high quality sources of collagen, as well as making sure the surrounding core muscular is balanced can improve the support of your cervix.
Emotional/Physical Trauma
Since the cervix is the reflexology point of the heart it create a holding pattern that is locked into the tissue from the emotional or physical trauma your body, heart and mind endure. This pattern can manifest as physical restrictions in the cervix tissue, as well as a protective pattern in the pelvic floor. Rigid tissue that has lost it’s natural fluid rhythm.
When your cervix holds this trauma it doesn’t feel safe to open and receive or to let go. And since the cervix is the apex of the pelvic floor and acts as a gate keeper it too needs to be able to let go and open. It takes a balance of emotional and physical work to restore balance.
Pelvic Floor Injury/Birth
Pelvic floor injury can occur in many different ways, but the most common is vaginal birth. The cervix is the beginning of the exit for baby during a vaginal birth. As the cervix dilates and and thins the pelvic floor also lengths, like opening a draw string bag. As natural as this process is, it is a lot of work for the tissues and can cause little micro abrasions and inflammation.
Circumstances that the cervix can become more injured during birth are:
it’s not ready to push and doesn’t dilate or thin fully
labor is taking a long time with prolonged stretch and downward force on the tissues
labor is very quick and the tissues haven’t had a chance to lengthen
The cervix may not be ready for pushing if there isn’t a strong enough response from the hormones responsible for cervix ripening, like oxytocin, or your body doesn’t feel safe. For most birthing people the length of pregnancy is around 40 weeks, at which time the body triggers the cascade of hormones to start labor. Sometimes this happens early or late, either opening the cervix too early or not at all.
Just like animals, our primal instincts can take over and when your body senses any “danger,” which can also be your fear of birth, your body can shut down the birth process. This is one way labor may go long, putting an extended amount of force on your cervix. This is like keeping a rubber band stretched for a long time and it looses its elasticity and doesn’t rebound. On the other hand if labor is super quick and the cervix didn’t get a chance to lengthen and were stretched really fast, the tissues can tear.
There are so many factors out of your control with birth, but using your pregnancy to prepare by practicing birth postures and “pelvic floor” push breathing, stretching tight pelvic, hip and back muscles, strengthening weak core & complimentary muscles, massaging the pelvic floor, and even safe inversions to balance the cervix ligaments can reduce your risk of cervix and pelvic floor injury.
Scarring/Adhesions
Scarring and adhesions may be a result of birth injury, but they can also be from endometriosis or surgery. When scars and adhesions form restrictions around the cervix or surrounding tissue it can do several things:
pull the cervix out of natural position
restrict circulation
constrict nerves and muscles
As I mentioned above the cervix is meant to move and if you check the position through the course of your cycle you’ll feel how it rises and lowers in the vagina. It also has some side to side and front to back movement. This is important for orgasm and birth. However, the cervix is not meant to remain in a fixed position, which can happen if scarring or adhesions lock the tissues or pull the tissues into a unnatural positions. Then when it needs to move for your cycle, orgasm, birth or sacral/spine movement it can cause pain.
Your cervix also requires nutrients, oxygen and removal of toxins. When circulation is cut off or diminished from scarring it alters the nourishment and evacuation to the tissues. This can make the cervix dehydrated and change the cervical mucus. And if the nerves that innervate the area of impacted from scarring they can signal pain sensations or alter muscle support of the cervix.
So addressing scarring and adhesions through massage, mobilization, lazer therapy, or excision can help you improve your cervix health.
As you can see there are many ways the cervix can be impacted, which can lead to pelvic floor dysfunction and potential reproductive and pelvic health issues. And vice versa, pelvic floor health can impact the functioning of the cervix.