Table 3.

Experimentally determined values of κ and h of the vaginal vaults of Sprague-Dawley rats. In each group two rats were used, except in the spontaneous delivery groups where 4 rats were used for both the two day and two week postpartum measurements. The parameters were determined by fitting equation 4 to the measured change in volume with applied pressure for each cohort. As discussed in the text, h is a measure stiffness of the tissue and represents the pressure required to reach one-half of the maximum volume (Salazar and Knowles, 1964). The values shown were obtained from measurements on two rats within each group. The results of a t-test are shown, which quantify the probability that the observations are statistically different comparing two days to two weeks post-partum rats (simulated, spontaneous and Cesarean cohorts) and between the multiparous and virgin rats.

	$\frac{1}{\kappa }\times {10}^2{[\text{Pa}]}^{-1}$	$h=\frac{ln(2)}{\kappa }\times {10}^2{[\text{Pa}]}^{-1}$	t-test [%]
Simulated 2 Days	5.06 ± 1.40	3.51 ± 0.97	89.17
Simulated 2 Weeks	8.51 ± 3.21	5.90 ± 2.23
Spontaneous 2 Days	4.62 ± 0.74	3.21 ± 0.51	98.89
Spontaneous 2 Weeks	9.67 ± 0.16	6.70 ± 0.11
Cesarean 2 Days	5.32 ± 1.17	3.69 ± 0.81	89.37
Cesarean 2 Weeks	8.50 ± 2.97	5.89 ± 2.06
MP	5.41 ± 2.25	3.75 ± 1.56	88.49
Virgin	8.36 ± 2.14	5.79 ± 1.48