Can you feel prolapse with your finger?
Usually, once it reaches the vaginal opening. At that point it feels like a soft, smooth bulge, and that’s also about where most women start to have symptoms. Symptoms tend to begin when the leading edge of the prolapse sits about half a centimeter past the opening. Prolapse higher up in the vagina is hard to feel on your own, and many women only learn about it at a pelvic exam.
Checking yourself is safe. It won’t damage anything or make prolapse worse.
How to check
Wash your hands and make sure your nails are short. Stand with one foot up on the edge of the tub or a chair, or squat. Slide one finger a short way into the vagina, then bear down gently, as if you’re having a bowel movement. Prolapse moves down toward your finger when you push and slides back up when you relax.
Check later in the day or after you’ve been on your feet for a while. Prolapse is often smaller first thing in the morning or after lying down, which is why I examine patients both lying down and while straining, and standing if needed.
What you might feel
Where the bulge is tells you what’s dropping:
- Front wall, toward the bladder: usually a cystocele, the most common type of prolapse
- Back wall, toward the rectum: usually a rectocele
- Firm, rounded tissue at the top with a small opening in the center: the cervix, which means the uterus has come down. After a hysterectomy, a bulge from the top is the vaginal vault.
Most women with symptoms have more than one area involved, so it’s common to feel more than one of these.
Using a finger to empty your bladder or bowels
Some women find prolapse a different way. They have to press on the back wall of the vagina, or the skin between the vagina and anus, to finish a bowel movement, or push the bulge up to start urinating. This is called splinting. It’s a recognized prolapse symptom, especially with a rectocele, and a reason to get evaluated.
What else it could be
Much of what women feel at the opening is normal. Mild descent is common and isn’t a problem unless it causes symptoms.
A few other things can feel like a bulge: cysts in the vaginal wall, a pocket off the urethra (urethral diverticulum), and rectal prolapse, which comes out of the anus rather than the vagina. In some women a normal cervix also sits low enough to reach.
Does what you feel tell you how bad it is?
Not by itself. Some women with prolapse well past the opening have few symptoms, and some with a small bulge are bothered a lot. I base treatment on how much it bothers you. If it doesn’t bother you, watching it is a reasonable choice.
Prolapse also tends to change slowly. In one study of women followed without treatment, 78% had no change over 16 months.
When to get checked
Make an appointment if the bulge is new, getting bigger, or causing pressure, discomfort, leaking, or trouble emptying your bladder or bowels. At a baseline exam I measure the prolapse, so we can tell later whether it has changed.
Get seen sooner if:
- You can’t urinate, or can’t empty your bladder
- Tissue sitting outside the body becomes raw, sore, or bleeds
- You can’t push the bulge back in
- You have any bleeding after menopause
Treatment options include pelvic floor physical therapy, which improves symptoms in mild to moderate prolapse, a pessary (a removable support device worn in the vagina), and surgery. The right one depends on your symptoms and what you want to be able to do.
References
- ACOG and AUGS. Pelvic organ prolapse. ACOG Practice Bulletin No. 214. Obstetrics & Gynecology. 2019.
- Barber MD. Pelvic organ prolapse. BMJ. 2016. doi:10.1136/bmj.i3853
- Carberry CL, Tulikangas PK, Ridgeway BM, et al. AUGS best practice statement: evaluation and counseling of patients with pelvic organ prolapse. Urogynecology. 2025. doi:10.1097/SPV.0000000000001641
- Hagen S, Stark D, Glazener C, et al. Individualised pelvic floor muscle training in women with pelvic organ prolapse (POPPY): a multicentre randomised controlled trial. The Lancet. 2014. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)61977-7
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