Myometrium

Looks like

The thick middle wall of the womb: three layers of smooth muscle whose fibres run every way.

What it does

Squeezes in labour, and clamps the vessels shut after the birth — the body's own tourniquet.

Keeping it well

Iron in pregnancy and oxytocin at birth; when this muscle fails to clamp, bleeding is fast.

Related conditions

• Absent periods (amenorrhoea)
• Adenomyosis
• Asherman's syndrome
• Bone metastases and spinal cord compression
• Botulism
• Cervical cancer
• Cervical insufficiency
• Ectopic pregnancy
• Endometrial (womb) cancer
• Endometrial polyps and hyperplasia
• Endometriosis
• Female infertility
• Fetal growth restriction
• Fibromyalgia
• Frailty & falls in older age
• Gestational diabetes
• Heat exhaustion & heatstroke
• Heavy & painful periods
• Hereditary cancer syndromes (BRCA, Lynch)
• Hyperemesis gravidarum
• Malnutrition & refeeding syndrome
• Maternal (puerperal) sepsis
• Miscarriage
• Molar pregnancy and gestational trophoblastic disease
• Muscular dystrophy
• Obstructed labour and obstetric fistula
• Pelvic inflammatory disease
• Placenta praevia
• Placental abruption
• Polymyalgia rheumatica
• Postpartum haemorrhage
• Preterm labour and birth
• Rhabdomyolysis
• Sarcoma
• Sarcopenia
• Stillbirth
• Tetanus
• Uterine fibroids