Female Pelvic Physiology - Top Six Aha!s

Diving deeper into the living pelvis, as always, my obsession.

Are you looking out the window wondering, jeez where does all the money go when you subscribe to my Substack? I offer all my writing for free, but you can subscribe to support my work and my continuing education obsession. (Yes, you can pay me to inspire you here, if you so desire.)

Well, this spring I spent it on a program called Women’s Work, with a very special physiologist/midwife/activist called Adelaide Meadow. I just finished week three of this 12-week journey and I’m absolutely LIT about what I’m learning. It’s all about woman centered movement, radical pelvic health, and feminism from a physiological perspective.

This first module has been anatomy and physiology, and as you may know I’m a geeeeeek for A&P. There has been so much that Adelaide has taught me about radical pelvic health, fascia, orgasms, numbness, hormones, muscle supplicity, male vs. female anatomy… It’s impossible for me to synthesize everything I’m learning, but I’ll share my Top 6 Aha!s below.

This is extra exciting to me because I’ve been studying this for over 15 years now, from all directions, and I’m still learning, still thirsty for more. The science is getting better, and by that I mean, yahooo they’re finally studying us.

So, I’m writing to give you a taste of what I’ve been learning, my Top Six Female Pelvic Physiology Aha!s from the last three weeks of content in my training.

But really quick before I do, here are some figures worth noting: 

• 1 in 5 children will experience incest (from Andrea Dworkin), the vast majority of which are girls. 

• Approximately 1 in 3 women will experience sexual assault, domestic abuse or control. I suspect this figure is actually low.

• The United Nations Population Fund estimates that during the Covid pandemic there have been an additional 31 million cases of domestic violence globally. 

• 40% of American women will experience complete ovariohysterectomy (total medical castration) in their lifetime. (Everything Below the Waist, Jennifer Block) 

• 50% of women will experience some kind of pelvic dysfunction, prolapse, or incontinence in their lifetime. (Everything Below the Waist, Jennifer Block) 

• Somewhere between 10-40% of women have never experienced orgasm. 

• Maternal/fetal death rates are on the rise, specifically in the US, nearly doubling in the last five years, growing from 17.4 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2018 to 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2021. 2022 numbers are not yet available. 

• Women still experience a substantial wage gap, earning between $.75 - $.88 on the $1.00 to men. The "controlled gender gap" is about 2% - 3%, but what is being controlled for, often has more to do with physiology that it initially looks. For example, the largest factor of the pay gap is the chosen field of work. Women commonly choose fields such as teaching or nursing due to schedules that accommodate raising children. Men experience virtually no career disruption when they father children.

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Women, while those stats rumble in your head and heart, take heart. It’s not all going to shits. I’ve got some inspiring stuff about your body to tell you. I hope it inspires you into action in some way that makes it easier to inhabit your own skin.

My Top Six Female Pelvic Physiology Aha!s

#1 - The female pelvis is built for two main bony actions: Mobility & Stability.

Meanwhile, the male pelvis is built only for one action: Stability. That’s right, physiological differences in the structure of the bones you were born with exist, and they change everything about how women move, sit, walk, exercise, and of course - BIRTH.

• Our pubic symphysis is mobile, and can gap during birth.

• The sacro-illiac joints have 3-5% mobility (at least 3x more than men) and can gap to open the pelvic inlet.

• The sacrum and coccyx can swivel with a lot of range of motion for childbirth.

#2 - Women need to strength train, not stretch.

What promotes mobility for women is building muscle mass. Because our bony joints already have mobility built in, women need to strength train and build muscle mass to support supplicity and mobility.

What promotes mobility in male pelvis is passive stretching. Men should be doing yoga, and indeed it is a system designed for male bodies.

Less mobility -> atrophy -> stagnation -> infection

#3 - There’s no such thing as a tight muscle. Therefore we do not need to stretch them.

Muscles extend or contract, they do not stretch. Nothing is made of rubber. They do it through the ability to be supple. 

Muscles can become weak because they get locked, either locked long (extended) or locked short (contracted). We need everything inside to move! If anything needs to have fluidity, it is our internal pelvic musculature. The bladder, colon, and uterus ALL shrink and expand every day. 

#4 - Fascia is a fucking mysterious plasma-like tissue.

Every system and every function in the body is involved with every other system and every other function in the body - fascia is the primary tissue that facilitates this connection.

The fascia changes post-mortem within 60 seconds - as life force leaves the body, the fascia firms up. It’s the tissue that the energetic and vibrational frequencies travel through. If everything except fascia were removed, we would still look like ourselves, right down to our facial expressions.

Fascia should be fluid like, but it also creates structure, because of our unique fascial weave, we are upright beings rather than puddles on the ground. 

#5 - Cervical Flight: or changes in size, shape, and texture over the month (and during arousal).

There is up and down movement of the cervix along the neck of the vaginal canal, to make room for penetration - during ovulation it’s higher, and during menstruation it’s lower.

There is also east to west movement - called involution - a widening uterine movement where both sides elevate scrunching her up while the fundus comes down, which creates effacement and dilation of the cervix.

The uterus involutes - it does not contract! Contraction is like everything squeezing in to the midline, creating tension, which essentially is the opposite of what happens when we become aroused or begin the birth process - where the cervix yields and softens.

#6 - Orgasm should be a parasympathetic nervous system experience.

Orgasm is an essential, primary function and blueprint for female pelvic health, and overall health. Sadly, one in three women haven’t experienced orgasm.

Cervical flight is a requirement for orgasm. Optimizing mobility in the pelvic bowl is a necessity for full orgasmic potential. We must be able to relax to allow for cervical flight.

Relaxation is a parasympathetic nervous system response. Parasympathetic Sex Cues: turn on, alight, open & spread.

Non-relaxed, restricted fascia affects how we breathe, or hold our breath when we near orgasm, which limits our orgasmic potential. The fix: learn to diaphragmatic breathe and don’t hold your breath during sex.

Orgasm is the most effective way to mobilize the pelvic tissues! It’s nutritious. 

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So I hope something in that list was as eye opening for you as it was for me. Stay tuned as I share more from my studies, and feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Thanks for your support to those of you who help me financially - you are angels and I love you! If you want to support me and this work/writing, here’s a discount on a year membership!

love love,

Sarah WolfMother