Updated 10 October 2026
At a glance
- A 2010 cohort followed 171 women with one fibroid in early pregnancy: 36% had an unidentifiable fibroid on postpartum ultrasound and 79% of the remaining fibroids decreased in size.
- A 2011 analysis reported that 72% of 168 women showed fibroid regression above 50%, and NICHD lists heavy bleeding after delivery among the risks that fibroids can bring.
- A table of the studies, a postpartum scan sheet, a word list, four steps and a one-page summary are set out below.
- Uterine Fibroids Journey keeps scan dates, size lines and symptoms in one dated history, and its Doctor Report exports that history as a one-page summary.
A fibroid found during pregnancy raises a quiet question for the months after birth: what will it look like on the next scan? Published ultrasound studies describe groups of women followed from early pregnancy to the postpartum period, and their numbers say little about any one uterus.
This guide sets out what two ultrasound cohorts, NICHD and the Office on Women's Health report, then offers a table of the findings, a postpartum scan sheet, a word list, four steps and a one-page summary for visits.
What two ultrasound cohorts, NICHD and the Office on Women's Health report about fibroids during and after pregnancy
The 2010 cohort followed women with ultrasound from early pregnancy to the postpartum period. Its summary reads: "Of 171 women with one initial fibroid, 36% had no identifiable fibroid at the time of postpartum ultrasound and 79% of the remaining fibroids decreased in size." The numbers describe one group of women who had a single fibroid at the start, so they say how a cohort changed and leave one uterus unanswered.
A 2011 analysis of women who had a live birth and a postpartum ultrasound reports: "Seventy-two percent of the women (n=168) showed fibroid regression >50%." In the package of sources for this guide, the comparison runs between early pregnancy and 3 to 6 months after birth, and the measure is fibroid volume. The two studies count different things, since one asks whether any fibroid could be seen and the other asks how much volume fell, so the 36% and the 72% each stand on their own measure.
NICHD looks at the other side of the picture: "Fibroids can also cause pregnancy complications, such as miscarriage, preterm delivery, abnormal position of the fetus, and the need for cesarean (C-section or surgical) delivery. Fibroids can also increase the risk of heavy bleeding after delivery." A NICHD news release reports that pregnancies with fibroids "had from 1.73 to 2.65 times greater risk of preterm birth." The Office on Women's Health states that "the risk of needing a c-section is six times greater for women with fibroids," in a sentence that cites no study.
None of these pages says what a given fibroid will do after birth. They report group findings, and the clinician who has the scans decides what they mean. What a person can bring is the dates of each scan and the size line printed on each report.
Each scan date and the size line from its report can be typed into My Labs in Uterine Fibroids Journey (by Health Journey Labs), so imaging sits in the same history as the weeks around it.
A table of the findings: who was studied, what was measured and how far each statement goes
The five sources measure different things, so the table sets out who was studied, what was counted and what kind of statement each one makes.
Findings table, by Uterine Fibroids Journey
| Source | What it reports | Kind of statement |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 cohort | Of 171 women with one initial fibroid, 36% had none identifiable postpartum and 79% of the rest were smaller | Ultrasound follow-up of one cohort |
| 2011 analysis | 72% of 168 women had fibroid regression above 50% by 3 to 6 months postpartum | Volume change in women with a live birth |
| NICHD FAQs | Fibroids linked with miscarriage, preterm delivery, abnormal fetal position, cesarean delivery and heavy bleeding after delivery | Government health page |
| NICHD news release | 1.73 to 2.65 times greater risk of preterm birth in pregnancies with fibroids | Study summary |
| Office on Women's Health | Six times greater risk of needing a c-section | Government health page, no study cited in that sentence |
The table shows that the shrinking findings and the complication findings come from different kinds of work and answer different questions. Neither offers a prediction for one person. A dated list of your own scans shows your clinician how your fibroid looked at each point, which no row above can supply. The guide to tracking pregnancy with uterine fibroids covers the weeks before birth.
Bleeding and pelvic discomfort fit into a one-line entry in the Daily check-in of Uterine Fibroids Journey, and a day that stood out can be flagged in the Flare Tracker.
A postpartum scan record for the clinician visit: dates, size lines and symptoms, with sample rows
After birth, scans, check-ups and symptoms pile up quickly, and the size printed on one report is hard to compare with the size on another unless the dates sit together. A record with one row per scan solves that. Every row below is invented, there only to show the columns.
Postpartum scan table, by Uterine Fibroids Journey
| Date | Weeks since birth | Scan or exam | Size line on the report | Symptoms that week |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Jan | Before birth | Pregnancy ultrasound | One fibroid, size noted | Mild pressure |
| 20 Feb | 6 weeks | Postpartum check | No scan | Bleeding settling |
| 14 Apr | 14 weeks | Pelvic ultrasound | Size line copied as written | Period not back |
| 2 Jun | 20 weeks | Follow-up scan | Size line copied as written | Heavier first period |
| 18 Aug | 31 weeks | Clinic visit | Discussed the scans | Question for next visit |
Fill in whichever of the five columns fit your scans, and a gap is fine. The size column holds the numbers exactly as the report prints them, without converting units or comparing them yourself. The weeks column counts from the birth, which lets you line your record up with the 3 to 6 month window the 2011 analysis used.
Looking down the date column after several months shows how many scans exist and how the symptoms moved around them. The guide to postpartum bleeding and pain with fibroids covers the first six weeks day by day.
Questions about a scan report can wait in My Care Team within Uterine Fibroids Journey, so each stays with the clinician who ordered it.
Words for scans, size lines and symptoms: what was seen, where and how it felt
Reports use technical terms, and clinicians ask in plain language, so a short vocabulary helps the two meet. Copy the report's wording beside your own.
Scan word list, by Uterine Fibroids Journey
- Scan words: ultrasound, pelvic scan, transvaginal, abdominal, follow-up scan, MRI, referral.
- Size words: size copied from report, same as before, smaller, larger, not seen, report pending.
- Bleeding words: spotting, light, heavy, clots, stopped, came back, first period after birth.
- Pressure words: fullness, bloating, pelvic ache, back ache, bladder pressure, bowel pressure.
- Status words: booked, done, waiting for the letter, explained, not yet explained.
Pick the scan, size and symptom words that match what happened, then date the entry. The report's own wording counts for more than a paraphrase, because the clinician can read it and cannot read your reading of it. The scan words follow the tests the sources mention, and the clinic may use others. Heavy bleeding after delivery, fainting or any sudden severe symptom is a reason to contact a clinician or your local emergency number first, with the record put aside.
The words you choose for bleeding and pressure can be saved in the Daily Journal of Uterine Fibroids Journey as you would say them, with the date they happened.
Four steps and questions for the postpartum clinician visit about fibroid scans
Postpartum visits often cover several topics at once, and fibroids can slip down the list. A few steps beforehand keep the scans on the page, and they only arrange what you already hold.
Postpartum visit steps, by Uterine Fibroids Journey
- List every scan so far with its date and weeks since birth, and leave a cell blank when you are unsure.
- Copy the size line from each report as it is printed.
- Mark any scan that is booked or waiting, with the date it was requested.
- Choose two or three questions about the scans, and put the most pressing one on top.
From Uterine Fibroids Journey, we recommend finishing the list the evening before the visit (Uterine Fibroids Journey checklist), so the latest report is on the page.
Questions can stay descriptive, such as which scan comes next, who will explain the size lines and when the fibroid is looked at again. These are for the clinic to answer, since the studies cannot speak to your case.
In the room, write each reply against its row, so the following visit picks up from there. The guide to tracking fibroid labs and scan dates with bleeding weeks lists further items to keep at hand.
The finished list becomes a one-page export through the Doctor Report in Uterine Fibroids Journey, ready before the visit begins.
A summary page for the obstetric or gynecology clinician: scans, size lines and symptoms since birth
A single page lets the clinician see what imaging exists before asking anything. It holds the list of scans, and the reports stay in your folder.
Obstetric summary list, by Uterine Fibroids Journey
- The birth date and the weeks the record covers.
- Each scan or exam, with its date and who did it.
- The size line from each report, as printed.
- Which scans are still waiting.
- Your bleeding and pressure notes since birth, in a line or two.
- Two or three questions for this visit.
Hand it over as the visit opens and offer to read down the rows together. Whatever the clinician asks to be added gets a date beside it. Keep a copy for yourself.
The page records dates, size lines and replies. What the scans mean, and whether anything is needed, are for your clinicians to decide, and no page, source or app can decide it. Heavy bleeding after delivery or any sudden severe symptom is a reason to call your local emergency number before anything else.
Scans arrive in date order on the summary that Uterine Fibroids Journey exports through its Doctor Report.
How Uterine Fibroids Journey can help
A folder is enough to begin. If you want scan dates, size lines and symptoms in one dated history, the best uterine fibroids apps guide compares the options.
Uterine Fibroids Journey is a personal uterine-fibroids tracker from Health Journey Labs on the App Store and Google Play. Scans, size lines and symptoms on shared dates show a clinician how a fibroid looked across the months after birth. Deciding what the scans mean belongs to your clinicians, and the record hands them the dates, the size lines and the replies as they arrived. Below is what you can use and how each part helps.
- Period Tracker — Logs start and stop dates, flow, how heavy or light bleeding felt.
- Daily check-in — Logs physical symptoms, emotional state, nutrition, sleep, exercise, meds, external factors; app-specific items: pelvic pain or pressure, bleeding heaviness, fatigue, bloating, what work or plans you limited; read together with the rest of the logged history.
- Daily Journal — Logs free-text notes, voice entry; app-specific items: pad or tampon changes, bathroom trips at work, partner lines, visit debriefs, leftover fear after a flood day, a look-fine mismatch line; read together with scores and other logged history (adds context).
- Flare Tracker — Logs flag a day clearly worse than the usual hard week; app-specific items: flooding, clot clusters, pain that jumps above baseline, a day you had to leave work early; read together with history across weeks (one-off spike vs repeating pattern).
- Weekly Goals — Logs one small aim, whether it held; read together with real check-ins.
- My Meds — Logs medicine names, timing, dose; app-specific items: iron, hormonal options, pain relief, other treatments you already take as directed; read together with bleeding weeks, pain, energy, the rest of the tracked history.
- My Care Team — Logs clinicians, short visit notes; app-specific items: tends to ask mainly about period length rather than work missed or clot size; read together with logged history; used for: visit prep (what to ask and bring); notes during the visit; review afterward.
- Doctor Report — Logs one-page summary exported from logged history; app-specific items: cycle dates, heaviness, pain, energy, work limits, meds; read together with the history already logged; visit type: gyn.
- My Labs — Logs result dates; app-specific items: hemoglobin, ferritin, ultrasound, MRI, other fibroid-related tests; read together with bleeding, pain, function.
- Learn — Logs short education topics, prompts; app-specific items: heavy bleeding, pain, iron fatigue, visit prep, why work limits still belong in the log; read together with your own logged weeks.
- AI companions — Logs Clara (general chat), specialist companions; app-specific items: knowledge, fitness, nutrition, relationships; read together with your logged history (companions already see it); used for: visit wording; a calm work or partner script; a listening ear after a flooding day.
- My Assessments — Logs structured check-ins beyond daily scores, onboarding life and social context; read together with ongoing history.
- Food Tracker — Logs meal or drink lines, nutrition; read together with energy, iron care, bleeding.
- Weight Tracker — Logs scale or body notes; read together with the rest of the logged history.
Everything you log builds one history, and insights get stronger as it grows. Custom symptoms let you add your own labels.
We make Uterine Fibroids Journey at Health Journey Labs. This guide is educational and does not replace medical advice. Diagnosis, medication decisions, and urgent care decisions belong with your treating clinicians.
Sources
- Fertility and Sterility: postpartum ultrasound cohort
- American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology: postpartum factors and natural fibroid regression
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development: other uterine fibroids FAQs
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development: news release on uterine fibroids and pregnancy
- Office on Women's Health: uterine fibroids
FAQ
The answers below draw on the sources cited in this guide, and the app they mention is Uterine Fibroids Journey (by Health Journey Labs).
Do fibroids shrink after pregnancy?
A 2010 cohort of 171 women with one initial fibroid found 36% had none identifiable on postpartum ultrasound and 79% of the rest were smaller, and a 2011 analysis found 72% of 168 women with regression above 50%. These are group findings.
Since each scan line in Uterine Fibroids Journey carries its date, your own before-and-after sizes sit in one place, and a clinician can set your numbers beside the published ones without any guessing about which scan came first.
Why do the 36% and the 72% differ?
The first counts women with no identifiable fibroid at the postpartum scan, and the second counts women whose fibroid volume fell by more than half. They answer different questions, so each number stands on its own measure.
Writing down which measure each report used, in the note under the line in My Labs of Uterine Fibroids Journey, keeps two different kinds of result from being merged when you look back months later.
What window did the 2011 analysis use?
In the sources gathered for this guide, the comparison runs from early pregnancy to 3 to 6 months postpartum, using fibroid volume. Your own clinician decides when a follow-up scan makes sense for you.
Counting weeks since birth in Uterine Fibroids Journey lets you see whether a scan fell inside that 3 to 6 month window or outside it, and the clinic can place your report against the study's timing.
Can fibroids affect bleeding after delivery?
NICHD says fibroids can increase the risk of heavy bleeding after delivery. Heavy bleeding after delivery is a reason to contact a clinician or your local emergency number straight away, and a log is secondary to that.
After urgent help has been reached, the bleeding notes can be added to Uterine Fibroids Journey with their dates, so the postpartum visit has an orderly account of how the first weeks went and what changed.
What do the complication figures mean for me?
NICHD reports 1.73 to 2.65 times the risk of preterm birth in pregnancies with fibroids, and the Office on Women's Health cites six times the risk of a c-section without naming a study. Your clinician explains what applies to you.
Questions about these figures can be parked in My Care Team of Uterine Fibroids Journey, so the one you most want answered sits at the top when the appointment starts and none gets lost in a long visit.
What is a size line on a scan report?
It is the measurement the report prints for the fibroid, usually with units. Copy it as written and leave comparison to the clinician, since reports from different scans may measure in different ways.
A size line pasted into My Labs of Uterine Fibroids Journey beside its date stays exactly as printed, which gives the next clinician the original numbers instead of a summary of them.
Should I note symptoms between scans?
Bleeding, pressure and pain between scans show a clinician how the weeks felt around each report. A short line a day, or a few lines a week, is enough for most visits.
Short entries in the Daily check-in of Uterine Fibroids Journey stack up into a weekly picture, and a clinician scanning it sees heavier weeks without reading every day, which fits a short appointment.
How do I describe bleeding in plain words?
Plain words work: spotting, light, heavy, clots, stopped, came back. Add the date and anything unusual, and the clinician can ask follow-up questions from there to fill in the picture of those weeks.
A bleeding word saved in the Daily Journal of Uterine Fibroids Journey appears under its date, so a run of entries shows how the pattern moved after birth, in your own phrasing and without any special format.
Who should see the scan record?
An obstetric or gynecology clinician, a primary care doctor and any radiology or imaging team may each hold part of the picture, and one shared page keeps every office reading the same dates.
A shared export from Uterine Fibroids Journey can go to every office with the same current list, and its date shows which copy is newest, so every office works from the same current list of scans.
What should I bring to a postpartum visit about fibroids?
Bring the scan record, the one-page summary, copies of the reports and two or three questions. A single page reads faster than a stack, and the full reports stay in your folder for the line someone asks about.
One page made through the Doctor Report of Uterine Fibroids Journey stands in for a thick folder at the desk, while the daily entries remain on your phone for the specific week that comes up in conversation.
Can an AI chat predict what my fibroid will do?
Predicting that takes a clinician who has your scans and history, and an urgent symptom calls for your clinician or your local emergency number. An AI chat is useful for tidying notes and phrasing questions, and that is where it stops.
Asked for a recap, the companion in Uterine Fibroids Journey puts the scans and symptom weeks into a few lines, each traceable to an entry you made, and interpretation stays with the clinician who knows you.
For how long should the scan record be kept?
How long to keep going is for the clinic to say, as none of these pages sets a number of weeks. New scans are worth adding as they happen, and pausing between them is fine.
One modest target in Weekly Goals of Uterine Fibroids Journey, such as adding each new report within a day, keeps the record current, and quiet stretches read as quiet in the history.
What if a report uses unfamiliar terms?
Copy the line as written and add a question for the clinician who ordered the scan. A line copied faithfully is more useful than a guess at its meaning, and the clinic can explain the terms and the numbers.
The original wording, pasted with its date into the Daily Journal of Uterine Fibroids Journey, keeps the exact text on hand, which a clinician can read aloud and explain row by row, in front of you.
When does a symptom need urgent help?
Heavy bleeding after delivery, fainting or any sudden severe symptom is a reason to contact your clinician or your local emergency number straight away. Notes are only a support for visits, and urgent help always comes first.
After the emergency has passed, Uterine Fibroids Journey is where the date and what happened can be added, so the next appointment opens with an account written while details were fresh and in your own words.
Should I worry about privacy when I track symptoms?
Bleeding amounts, pad counts and notes on anemia or sex are private details. Protect the log with a passcode, keep it off family tablets, and print only the cycle summary for the gynecology visit.
The health notes in Uterine Fibroids Journey are yours to keep or share. The app's privacy policy explains how data is stored and handled. Nothing in this article is medical advice.