The bottom part of your stomach (the organ) is called the pylorus. Just above it sits the antrum, a holding area where food collects before moving on. Together, these two sections make up the lower third of the stomach and do the final work of grinding food down before it enters the small intestine.
That said, “lower stomach” means different things depending on context. Some people are asking about the organ itself, while others mean the lower part of their belly. Both have specific anatomical names worth knowing.
The Five Regions of the Stomach Organ
Your stomach isn’t one uniform pouch. It has five distinct zones, each with a slightly different job. From top to bottom, they are the cardia (where food enters from the esophagus), the fundus (the dome-shaped upper curve), the body (the largest central section), the antrum, and the pylorus.
The body does most of the chemical digestion, producing acid and enzymes that break food apart. Once that process is underway, partially digested food slides down into the antrum and pylorus, which handle the mechanical side of things and control the exit.
What the Antrum Does
The antrum lies just below the stomach body. Think of it as a waiting room: it holds food until your stomach is ready to release it. Thick muscular walls in the antrum contract in strong, rhythmic waves that grind food into smaller and smaller particles, mixing it into a semi-liquid paste called chyme.
Because the antrum does so much physical churning, it’s a common site for irritation. Antral gastritis, an inflammation concentrated in this area, is one of the most frequently diagnosed forms of stomach inflammation. It’s often linked to the bacterium H. pylori, which tends to colonize the antrum’s lining.
What the Pylorus Does
The pylorus is the very bottom of the stomach. It narrows into a short channel that connects to the first section of the small intestine (the duodenum). At the end of that channel sits the pyloric sphincter, a ring of muscle that opens and closes to regulate how quickly food leaves the stomach.
This sphincter is surprisingly selective. It lets through only tiny amounts of chyme at a time, keeping larger particles inside the stomach for more grinding. A meal can take two to five hours to fully empty through the pylorus, depending on its fat and fiber content. Fatty meals slow things down considerably because the small intestine signals the sphincter to stay tighter for longer.
When scar tissue or swelling narrows or blocks this opening, the result is gastric outlet obstruction. Food backs up in the stomach, causing nausea, vomiting, and bloating. In infants, a condition called pyloric stenosis causes the sphincter muscle to thicken abnormally, which requires treatment to restore normal emptying.
Where the Pylorus Sits on Your Body
If you want to locate it from the outside, the pylorus sits roughly at the level of your first lumbar vertebra (L1). Anatomists use an imaginary horizontal line called the transpyloric line to find it. That line runs halfway between the notch at the top of your breastbone and the top of your pubic bone. On most adults, this falls near the belly button or just above it, slightly to the right of the midline.
“Lower Stomach” as a Body Region
When people say “my lower stomach hurts,” they usually don’t mean the organ at all. They’re pointing to the area below the belly button, which anatomists divide into three regions. The central one is the hypogastric region (also called the pubic region). Flanking it on either side are the right and left iliac regions, sometimes called the inguinal regions.
These lower zones don’t contain the stomach organ. Instead, they house parts of the small and large intestines, the bladder, and in women, the uterus and ovaries. Pain in this area is more commonly related to the intestines, urinary tract, or reproductive organs than to the stomach itself. So if your discomfort is below the belly button, the cause is almost certainly something other than a stomach problem, even though calling it “lower stomach pain” feels natural.
The stomach organ actually sits higher than most people expect. It occupies the upper left portion of the abdomen, mostly tucked under the lower ribs. True stomach pain tends to show up in the upper middle or upper left part of the belly, not down low.