You've probably heard of a condition called micropenis; it's a penis that measures less than 2.8 inches long. But microvagina appears to be a real thing as well.
A case report published in June in the BMJ focuses on a 20-year-old woman in Pakistan who'd never had a period and was experiencing pain in the lower part of her stomach for three years. After she got married, the woman was physically unable to have sex with her husband. The problem persisted for six months, and it eventually led to verbal and physical abuse.
When the woman went to a doctor to find out what was wrong, it turned out that her vagina was less than an inch long and ended in a sac unconnected to her uterus. (The average length of an unaroused vagina is 2.4 inches, according to one study.)
The medical term for this condition is "blind vagina." It's a congenital disorder that happens when the fetal reproductive system doesn't fully develop. Women born with it will have either a vertical or horizontal wall of tissue blocking the vagina. The woman in this case had a horizontal wall, known as a transverse vaginal septum (TVS).
The woman underwent surgery to remove the septum and extend her vaginal cavity. To stretch out the new vagina, doctors created penis-sized molds that she would insert for seven days at a time for several weeks.
Four months after surgery, she was cleared to try to have sex, and at seven months, she was able to get pregnant. Nine months later, she delivered a healthy baby boy by caesarian section.
"This surgery has given me a new life in true sense. I had to suffer a lot of verbal, physical, and emotional abuse from my own family and my in-laws," the woman said in the case report. "This treatment blessed me with happy marital relations, self-confidence, and a healthy baby."
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