# Unevenly dilated cervix?



## dancemama23 (Aug 22, 2006)

What makes a cervix dilate unevenly? This happened with my son's birth, any other women have this and had it dilate fully/normally with time or ?? His head was down. I'm pregnant again, and if it happens again would love to be able to help myself dilate better somehow, or just know that it is normal and will right itself or not. Thanks


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## THANKFULFORFIVE (Jan 8, 2009)

I had this also. The anterior lip always gave me a problem. Doc asked if my cervix had been frozen at some point? Nope, so no one ever really gave me an explanation. Each delivery was different, though. Only a problem with baby #2. But, it does eventually thin out enough for normal delivery. Just made the second stage of labor longer, and more inconvenient with the head pushing against it making it swell.


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## wombatclay (Sep 4, 2005)

With dd1 (ended in a c/s after ~19 hours at 7cm despite massive contractions) the eventual answer to why I didn't dilate evenly (or after a certain point, at all) was that she was asynclitic. Although she was "head down" her head was tilted (her molding was all over her ear







) and not applying pressure to my whole cervix. Although it's true that the baby's head isn't totally necessary to dilate, it doesn't help if there is pressure on one part but none on another. Everything is designed to work together and sometimes when a piece of the puzzle is "missing" it just doesn't work out.

With dd2's birth I dilated quickly and evenly... between the first contractions and full dilation was about 8 hours.

I was very focused on spinning babies & optimal fetal positioning during my second pregnancy and I think that helped. I'll be following those guidelines again with this pregnancy and hopefully I'll have another uncomplicated birth!

happy birthing!


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## bobandjess99 (Aug 1, 2005)

yes. Usually, it happens when the baby is not positioned properly, and therefore not applying even pressure to the cervix..like if the baby's head is tilted to one side.
anothr reason might be scar tissue which wont break up and dilate, like if you have had a past LEEP, biopsy, cervical tear, etc.


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## Jilian (Jun 16, 2003)

You can help the baby get into optimal positioning by using many different positions during labor. I agree with the other mamas that is sounds like your baby may have been not properly positioned causing you to dilate unevenly. DS2 was in a funky position and I ended up with a cervical lip at the end that I asked the MW to push back for me (and it worked). Have you been to spinningbabies.com? Childbirth international's website has a cool page on rotational positioning to get baby in the perfect position for labor.


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## leerypolyp (Feb 22, 2005)

Happened to me twice, despite both babies starting out in OA -- they turned OP while descending and I ended up with a lip.

Some pelvises (pelves) are just like that, I think. Even if you get your baby into the "perfect" position prior to labor, there's no guarantee they'll stay that way.

I think if it's something you've dealt with, it's worth learning the things you can do *while pushing* to deal with positioning. Things like blowing through contractions in different positions (or in my case, taking a nice 40-minute car ride sitting straight up! weird, but totally effective).


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## dancemama23 (Aug 22, 2006)

Wow, you have no idea how grateful I am to hear your responses. Thank you so much, and yes, I did have a biopsy, but let's hope that's not the cause, because it sounds like that's not something I can do anything about, whereas the position I CAN at least try! I'll check out spinningbabies, and I have chosen to have regular chiropractic adjustments this pregnancy to help with positioning too among other things.


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## bobandjess99 (Aug 1, 2005)

Actually, regardless of positioning, if you had a biopsy and scar tissue formed, this will almost certainly impact things somewhat..although, it's possible all teh scar tissue was broken up the last time. I think midwives tend to kmnow more/do more about this, since they are much more vested in actaully having the baby come out your vagina...docs for the most part I think just ignore it, let the woman labor, and then do a c/S for "failure to progress". You might ask your midwife to do a thourough check for scar tissue to see if it is likley to be an issue again...if there is significant scar titssue, you can use EPO internally to help break it up, and sometimes if the midwife knows it's there, she can manually break it up during labor if it is impeding dilation.


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