Buckle up – in today’s instalment of ‘wow we really are taught nothing about our bodies’, we’ve just learnt what a uterus actually looks like.
Yup, I’ve gotten the whole way to 31 without knowing that the textbook drawing of what a uterus is isn’t actually what’s going on inside my body – and the likelihood is is that you haven’t either.
Traditionally when we’re shown a uterus in textbooks (anyone else getting aggressive flashbacks to sex ed?), it looks a bit like a ‘moose head’ or ‘butterfly wings’, just like the below:
Well, in a video from TikTok’s favourite doctor Dr Karan Rajan and Nadya Okamoto, founder of Period.org, the duo explain exactly what the uterus ACTUALLY looks like – and it’s not what we expected.
“You’d be actually surprised by what it looks like inside,” Dr Rajan explains.
Showing a picture of a real uterus on his phone, he adds: “Your uterus is actually shoved in there (your pelvic cavity) really tight – it’s why if you have inflammation in your ovaries it can cause problems with your bowel.
“Your uterus is more like... wings down – everything is hunkered down a lot more and not so supported and upright like textbook drawings.”
Rather than the neat little spread out uterus that we’re normally shown, a whole uterus is actually squished inside its cavity, just like the diagram below.
If you just said ‘SORRY WHAT’ out loud, trust us, you’re not alone.
The image comes from Cat Bohannon’s 2023 book Eve, which examines the way women’s bodies have been overlooked for decades – which, considering this is the first time we’ve seen what our reproductive organs actually look like, we’d have to agree with her.
Ah, the joy of uterus ownership...