# A question about women's sex organs. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 3, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751 "2008-04-03T01:45:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/1 "2008-04-03T01:45:39Z")
I’m sure this will be way too much information for some people, so you’re icky about such things you might not want to read beyond this point. It is, though, just a question about human anatomy. On we go: In all the images I’ve ever seen, since I was a kid, the sex organs are shown all neatly laid out like [this](http://www.cancervic.org.au/images/content/sexuality_and_cancer/female_repro_sexuality.gif), with no obvious “enclosure”. Everything appears to be open to the abdomen, which doesn’t seem possible. So, are the ovaries, uterus, fallopian tubes, and other bits inside a common, hmm, container? All this does have a common exit at the vagina, but I can’t see how it’s kept separate from the other organs in the vicinity. Enlighten this old dude, please. Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![ignis\_glaciesque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@ignis\_glaciesque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignis_glaciesque)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/2 "2008-04-03T01:52:23Z")
I’m pretty sure it’s all contained within its own sac or something like that. At least, I remember this vaguely from some anatomy classes. I’ll just step aside and let someone more knowledgable than I am say something more definite. ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/3 "2008-04-03T01:58:55Z")
Wait till someone comes along with stories of post-hysterectomy pregnancies… ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/4 "2008-04-03T02:03:17Z")
The pelvic organs are separated from the abdominal organs by the ‘peritoneum’. [This](http://www.changbioscience.com/store/images/anatomical/smd073/smd073.JPG) is a decent picture of a model for the peritoneum. The blue line is a sac containing the abdominal organs and excluding the pelvic organs. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/5 "2008-04-03T02:31:57Z")
I know there is a “peritoneal sac” (actually 2, a “greater” and a “lesser”) that encloses the main part of the digestive organs (small & large intestine, etc.) When this is torn and some of these organs protrude out from it, it’s called a “hernia”. But this sac is hardly ever shown on diagrams of the human system; it’s much easier to see these organs if the sac is left out of the diagram. I would assume the internal reproductive organs are contained within a similar sac. ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/6 "2008-04-03T09:56:28Z")
Wait a minute…you mean my uterus is not a self-contained unit? I always thought, since that stuff is usually shown in cross-section, that it was sort of like an inverted balloon, with the neck of the balloon being the vagina. Are you telling me that it’s not closed up? ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/7 "2008-04-03T14:14:40Z")
[QUOTE=brujaja] Wait a minute…you mean my uterus is not a self-contained unit? I always thought, since that stuff is usually shown in cross-section, that it was sort of like an inverted balloon, with the neck of the balloon being the vagina. Are you telling me that it’s not closed up? [/QUOTE] Well, the uterus is mostly closed up- the fallopian tubes enter the top on both sides, and the cervix at the bottom, of course. I think the question is more to whether the uterus, ovaries, and tubes are enclosed in something. I always wondered about that, too. The fallopian tubes aren’t directly connected to the ovaries, so could an egg pop out, and not be swept up into the tubes? I’ve heard of ectopic pregnancies, where the fertilized egg implants in the tube instead of the uterus, but how about somewhere outside the whole system? ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/8 "2008-04-03T14:32:29Z")
The Discovery Health Channel used to regularly run a program about extra-uterine pregnancies. They featured at least two cases of it, maybe a third that’s less remarkable (and that I’ve forgotten about). The egg was fertilized and was not swept into the fallopian tube but got loose in the pelvic cavity. Apparently it’s possible for the egg to attach and form a placenta inside the abdominal cavity. In one case, somewhere in the Middle East in the 1950s, when the baby was full term the woman went into labor for about a week, then the body gave up trying to have the baby, the baby died, and her body calcified it. She carried around the calcified fetus for decades. In the second case, which happened much more recently, the doctors realized what was going on, closely monitored the pregnancy, and delivered the baby surgically. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/9 "2008-04-03T15:58:18Z")
Now we’re getting to the meat (sorry 😉 ) of my question. These are exactly the things I wondered about. ---
**Author:** ![WF\_Tomba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d9b06d/32.png) [@WF\_Tomba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WF_Tomba)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/10 "2008-04-03T16:01:32Z")
[QUOTE=Sattua] The Discovery Health Channel used to regularly run a program about extra-uterine pregnancies. They featured at least two cases of it, maybe a third that’s less remarkable (and that I’ve forgotten about). The egg was fertilized and was not swept into the fallopian tube but got loose in the pelvic cavity. Apparently it’s possible for the egg to attach and form a placenta inside the abdominal cavity. In one case, somewhere in the Middle East in the 1950s, when the baby was full term the woman went into labor for about a week, then the body gave up trying to have the baby, the baby died, and her body calcified it. She carried around the calcified fetus for decades. [/QUOTE] I saw that program. It happened in Morocco, and I think it was about four decades that she carried the “stone baby” inside her. I think they also said that she was actually lucky no one figured out what was going on the first time, because the conditions in the hospital she was in then were so poor that they could have killed her trying to remove it surgically. ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/11 "2008-04-03T16:27:55Z")
Huh, you know I always kinda wondered this too; in diagrams it looks like the egg could just take off and go wandering around the organs on it’s own. They don’t’ really cover that in any of the health classes I’ve ever had. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/12 "2008-04-03T17:12:06Z")
That seems like pretty sloppy design to me. Why aren’t the ovaries enclosed in the tubes, so no egg gets lost? ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/13 "2008-04-03T17:26:11Z")
[QUOTE=Rocketeer] That seems like pretty sloppy design to me. Why aren’t the ovaries enclosed in the tubes, so no egg gets lost? [/QUOTE] Dude, you’re talking about a body with hinges for knees and the sewage plant next to the recreational area! It’s like that because it works well enough most of the time, not because it’s the most efficient design possible. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/14 "2008-04-03T17:46:48Z")
[QUOTE=Rocketeer] That seems like pretty sloppy design to me. Why aren’t the ovaries enclosed in the tubes, so no egg gets lost? [/QUOTE] You think that’s bad? You have the sewage lines running through and adjacent to the reproductive apparatus, the retinal array facing backward, the visual cortex at the back of the brain, the cochlear nerve taking its winding pathway from ear to brain, the existence of vestigial structures like the vermiform appendix and supernumerary teeth, et cetera. The whole hominid form–and in larger measure, vertebrates in general–is one big bag of suboptimal mechanical and neurological design, hence why it has been so vigorously and frequently revised due to selective pressures over the past few million years. Clearly all of the bugs haven’t worked out yet. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Flander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8c91f0/32.png) [@Flander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flander)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/15 "2008-04-03T18:52:40Z")
[QUOTE=Rocketeer] That seems like pretty sloppy design to me. Why aren’t the ovaries enclosed in the tubes, so no egg gets lost? [/QUOTE] I imagine the design that allowed the egg to flow freely through the body didn’t last too long. ---
**Author:** ![SharkB8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/977dab/32.png) [@SharkB8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SharkB8)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/16 "2008-04-03T19:36:47Z")
There’s gotta be some thin sheets of mesentery or something kind of anchoring the organs in place, right? I mean, I’m not sure about a sac. And, on occasion, I am hyper-aware of my uterus, but I never feel it rolling around in there, flopping over and such…feels pretty secure to me. Sort of like when you dissect a…let’s say frog, you can’t really slice them open and pull stuff (e.g. cloaca) out without having to snip or tear the connective tissue, I’d assume most vertebrates are the same. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/17 "2008-04-03T19:49:13Z")
[QUOTE=tremorviolet] Huh, you know I always kinda wondered this too; in diagrams it looks like the egg could just take off and go wandering around the organs on it’s own. They don’t’ really cover that in any of the health classes I’ve ever had. [/QUOTE] It happens 2% of ectopic pregnancies occur in the ovary, cervix, or are **intraabdominal**. Covers it near the bottom of the page > **[Ectopic pregnancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectopic_pregnancy)** > > Ectopic pregnancy is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo attaches outside the uterus. This complication has also been referred to as an extrauterine pregnancy (a.k.a. EUP). Signs and symptoms classically include abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding, but fewer than 50 percent of affected women have both of these symptoms. The pain may be described as sharp, dull, or crampy. Pain may also spread to the shoulder if bleeding into the abdomen has occurred. Severe bleeding may Overall, ect... ---
**Author:** ![Pullet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Pullet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pullet)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2008, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/18 "2008-04-03T20:24:49Z")
The peritoneal sacs are much thinner than you’d think from diagrams. Basically, it’s a one cell layer transparent kind of thing that lines the inside of the body cavity and the outsides of the organs, secreting a small amount of fluid so that everything stays lubricated and can shift around if needed. It’s not a discrete structure that you could pick up and hold. In fact, you’d only really see it if you took a slice of organ and looked at it under a microscope. When you look inside the abdomen of a critter, it just seems like the outside of the organs are moist and kind of slippery. So, to answer the OP, yeah, the uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes are just sitting in the abdomen. The heart is the only organ that really has a sac around it in the way you mean. It’s called the pericardium. All the abdominal organs hang by various support ligaments, like the mesentary, which keep things more or less in the positions they are supposed to be. But they can and do shift around. The uterus has its own support ligaments that attach it to the inside of the body wall on either side to keep it from shifting around much. The ovary and fallopian tubes have support ligaments too. Uterine torsions are possible, in animals at least, during late pregnancy. More common in cows, who have really big babies that can catch the uterus and twist it around with them as they get into position for delivery. As others have pointed out, the fallopian tubes open directly into the body cavity. But, they’re right next to the ovary, so they more often than not catch the ovulated eggs. In dogs, the fallopian tube wraps almost completely around the ovary, with only a small vestigial opening. Good tactic for a species that only ovulates twice a year. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/19 "2008-04-04T03:23:09Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train] the visual cortex at the back of the brain [/QUOTE] Hell, at least that way it’s easier to implement [after-market repairs and upgrades](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthetic) without disassembling the whole unit. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2008, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751/20 "2008-04-04T03:26:44Z")
What if there is excess fluid in the abdomen, could it escape via the fallopian tubes? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-question-about-womens-sex-organs/443751.md?page=2)