*WATCH* Anatomy 101

Ok ladies, as this is a women’s health website, and women’s health tends to involve women’s bodies, I thought I’d start with a quick anatomy review. Just what’s what in the female reproductive system and where it’s at. 🙂

I used the simplest diagrams I could find or create, both to keep things easy to understand and as tznuah as possible. (I plan to stick to audio more than audiovisuals, so bear with me.)

I realized I didn’t include a diagram from the outside – so here’s another sample of my Paint skills! (My daughters are still concerned she’s not “tznuas” – their bilingual take on the words tznius and tznuah – but I think we’re okay…) Use a little imagination: the reproductive system which you see diagrams of in the PowerPoint/video above is located almost completely in the area covered by those purple panties.

I’m going to give an example to illustrate why I think it’s important to review this content:
Just a couple of weeks ago, someone came to me for a bedikah exam and began telling me something in Hebrew about her “התקן”, and gestured somewhere to the left of her upper belly. I didn’t catch the word, which I only barely recognize in the first place, and was puzzled by what organ she might be referring to… her spleen? Pancreas? After a minute, she clarified it was something to prevent pregnancy, and when I asked if it had strings, I realized she was talking about her IUD – BUT HAD NO IDEA WHERE IT WAS IN HER BODY. An IUD – or intrauterine device – is placed in the uterus, hence it’s name. And the uterus wasn’t anywhere near where she’d thought it might be. If G-d forbid she’d had a complication, or even any questions about how the device was working, I’m not sure she would have been able to communicate with her doctor in a productive way. (Of course, I pointed to wear the IUD was really at, but unfortunately my Hebrew wasn’t up to a whole lot of patient education on the subject.)

Let me know if you have any further questions!