Peritoneal gutters and pouches are spaces in the abdominal cavity formed or bounded by peritoneum.

Gutters

In the abdomen, two paracolic and two paramesenteric gutters are the main peritoneal gutters. The left and right paracolic gutters lie on the posterior abdominal wall alongside and lateral to the ascending and descending transverse colons. The paramesenteric gutters (or infracolic spaces) are spaces between the colon and the mesenteric root. These gutters allow for infection fluids to flow from one cavity of the abdomen to another.

Pouches

Unlike gutters which can almost be likened to passageways, peritoneal pouches are just a pocket lined by peritoneum in the abdomen. In males, there is the recto-vesical pouch that lies between the rectum and bladder. As females have a uterus, this one pouch becomes two pouches – the deeper rectal-uterine pouch between the rectum and posterior wall of the uterus, and the shallower vesico-uterine pouch between the bladder and the uterus. Another pouch includes the Morison’s pouch that lies between the liver and kidney