If You’re Curious About How Childbirth Will Destroy Or Improve Your Vagina, Reddit Has Answers

A pregnant Redditer concerned that her vagina will be “wrecked” by childbirth, went to the site’s Baby Bumps sub-Reddit for answers. And she got some. Oh boy, did she get some.

Proving once again that vaginas are like snowflakes — icy and delicate — other forum members were quick to tell her how much better and how much worse their vaginas were after giving birth.

For the most part, reports were that their vaginas were actually tighter afterwards, which doubtless caused great rejoicing and wincing among some readers. This did come with a caveat from one woman who said that yes, her vagina was tighter, “…but it [doesn’t] look exactly the same.” Another said that her vagina looked the same, but was “noticeably larger” inside. At this point, her head swimming with pictures of large, normal, tight, and distorted vaginas, the original poster took an Ambien and started cutting her split ends with a nail clipper.

The women of Baby Bumps reassured the poster that she was both right and wrong to be worried. One said that her husband found her internally to be “tighter and more textured,” while another said gloomily, “the pain never went away.” One woman shared that she now has “slightly wrinkled outer labia,” displaying a level of familiarity with her vagina that must make her an excellent witness in court. And one hero cut through all the crap and said, “My vagina grew teeth and a nasty attitude.”

After a few posts reassuring her that her vagina would still work after giving birth, the original poster stepped in and said that she wasn’t concerned about whether or not her vagina was going to work afterwards, but about “how pleasing” it would look. I was surprised by this, because I find that if I just do her hair and slap on some lip gloss, my vagina can generally hold her own when we’re out and about.

Many posters reassured her that she could handle a lot of this preemptively by doing Kegels, the vaginal squeezing you do during a long car ride after a large cup of coffee. One poster recommended doing them when bored or while watching TV, to which vaginas everywhere screamed, “Don’t we do enough for you?!”

Meanwhile, women who’ve had c-sections were patting their vaginas and saying, “Shhhh…it’s okay. I know it sounds horrible. Just close your ears, sweetheart. And don’t talk to Tummy Scar, she’ll just give you nightmares.”