For women: is your vagina or vulva too big – or too small?

Are you too big?

If you've never had children, it's almost unthinkable that your vagina or vulva is too big.

Unfortunately, there's a very common myth in some parts of Britain - a myth to the effect that a woman who has lots of sex will get a large vagina. This is just nonsense! No matter how much sex you have, it won't affect your vaginal or vulval size.

But what does affect your dimensions is childbirth. Unfortunately, the more babies you have, the more likely your vagina is to become widened. This is due to damage to the muscles and other supporting tissues of the vaginal walls. It's more common after difficult and prolonged labours. It can often be prevented by very determined use of the postnatal exercises that midwives and physiotherapists teach.

What happens if your vagina or vulva really is too big?

Let's look at the vagina (ie the interior) first.

If your vaginal 'barrel' is excessively big, so that you are 'slack', this can have the following effects:

What can be done about a slack vagina?

If your vagina is overly large and slack, the possible courses of action are as follows.

What if you feel your vulva is too large?

A lot of women are desperately worried about the appearance of their vulvas – feeling that they are 'too large' or that the labia are 'too long', or that bits of it protrude unequally. (Sometimes they are influenced in these views by having seen misleading pornographic magazines or videos – in which the 'heroine's' vulva appears impossibly neat and tidy!)

If that applies to you, my advice is to go to a Family Planning Clinic – because the women doctors there are dealing with this sort of worry all the time.

Very often, they'll be able to reassure you that you are in fact normal.

But if there really is an abnormality, it can be corrected by surgery – carried out by either a gynaecologist or a plastic surgeon. Since the beginning of this century, such operations have become increasingly common; however, a high proportion of them are performed privately, rather than on the NHS.

What if you think that you're too small?

Alternatively, do you think that you are 'built' too small?

I have to tell you that statistically this is most unlikely. Vast numbers of patients think that they are excessively small, but only once in a blue moon are they actually right.

The symptoms that make them feel that they are unusually small include:

But the vast majority of women who complain of these problems do eventually turn out to be normal-sized. Nearly always, they are suffering from a degree of vaginismus - the common condition that makes the vaginal muscles contract whenever any approach is made to the genitals.

To find out if your vagina really is too small, you should have an internal examination by an experienced doctor who is good at putting patients at their ease.