after birth questions

[ftmat29]

This is to those that are already mom's . I'm a FTM and you hear lots and lots and lots about labour when it comes to actually giving birth to the baby but what I want to know about is everything that happens after. I find it hard to find this information like no one really wants to talk about it. I'm looking for info on the placenta, tearing, healing, bleeding, all of it! I personally want to try for a natural birth with no epidural, any idea what kind of difference this makes on the after birth? What about the ice pads and thing I hear about occasionally?  Any info would be great. I don't have many women around me to ask these questions to!

[UniquelyMoi247]

I had an all natural birth 6wks ago. I had the injection straight after the birth to speed up delivery of the placenta (as it can take anywhere upto an hour the midwife said) and I remember delivering that just five minutes later.. But you don't feel it at all. I had a severe second degree tear which (I think went both ways) and apparently was very jagged not a clean tear so had to undergo around an hours worth of stitching up.. It took forever!!! I did have local anaesthetic but I still did have some pain and they gave me gas and air to help. I also had a major post partum hemorrhage, which led to a lot of panicking from my midwife..a team of 13 medical staff rushing to stop the bleed, hooking me up to IV to prevent shock, a catheter etc etc. It was a rough delivery to say the least. With my first I did have a second degree tear but other than that I had a great delivery lol. Anyway all was well, in the weeks after I bled for around three weeks and around the same time I felt almost completely healed too. I'm experiencing some minor urinary incontinence but nothing some extra keegals won't fix lol. In the first week to ten days I did need painkillers and ice pads are soothing. Despite it all I would do it again so can't have been that bad right?! Lol. Congrats and good luck! If you have any specific questions I'll gladly answer them :)

[Giuvi81]

I had  a totally natural delivery, they put the baby on my chest and did the stitcing with local anestesia, i didn't feel much...too much lookibg at my baby! After 1.5hr i took a shower, standing, and one hour later i was back home. There's pain and bleeding, and had almost no bladder control...came back after 1w-10days. It's about it for me...took some paracetamol the first days to cope with everything.

[erin_loren]

I'm glad you asked this question! I'm interested to hear more stories!!
Bump.

[schenner2]

I had a natural birth and i tore ALOT!  I was not prepared for 45 minutes worth of stitches. And while they stitched me daddy got to hold they baby because the stitching was painful and they didnt want me to flich.  I was a bit sad that i had been in labour for hours and got to spend only minutes with my precious girl before they got to work on me.  I understand it but didnt think about it beforehand.  I also remember the nurses pressing on my belly to help get the placenta out.  I agree it didnt hurt as much as labour but was definitely not pleasant! I was also very sore in places i did not expect like my back, shoulders and arms from pushing.  I bled for 6 weeks i believe And the biggest pads with wings worked best for the first week or so (even though i would never wear those by choice any other time!). Yes be prepared for your first bowel movement to hurt but dont avoid it as it only gets worse that way! Take stool softeners if your doctor doesnt prescribe them to you.  

[ftmat29]

This is great, thanks ladies :)

[Mamaofdeux]

If you ever want to know anything specific feel free to message me, I'm not shy at all, I'll tell you anything!

[Mamaofdeux]

I didn't have an episiotomy because they thought I wouldn't tear, but I did, only I tore up instead of down so I literally had to get a stitch in my clitoris. That was brutal. I had the epidural but I stopped pushing it right before I started pushing so that I could feel the need to push instead of just relying on the nurses to tell me when. My placenta didn't want to (for lack of a better word) eject, so they gave me a medicine to help it along and the nurses pushed my stomach while the doctor pulled it out, that wasn't necessarily painful but it wasn't pleasant either. It felt like a giant blood clot from a period. I remember feeling very empty inside after and my stomach was flat and droopy. They rolled me on my side and took the epidural out and handed me my baby. My husband and I asked for some time alone with the baby and we just sat together as a new family as we counted his fingers and toes and laughed at his ginger hair. About an hour later the nurse came in and assisted me to the bathroom where she showed me how to use the peri bottle to clean myself and helped me put on some underwear with a giant pad. Then we were wheeled to our room and we got things organized in there so we knew where everything was and settled in for the night. The nurses checked on us every half hour and asked about the last time the baby urinated, had a bowel movement, and ate. (I'd highly recommend keeping a little notebook and pen with you to write all those times down because it gets hard to remember and they really want to know specific times) They took the baby for testing every two to four hours, because he had slight jaundice and they wanted to keep an eye on it to make sure it would get better. Healing wasn't as bad as I expected.  The stitches whomped because I could feel them every time I coughed or sneezed. I never used an ice pack but I think I will this time bevause it sounds like a brilliant idea. I couldn't get into the shower without help because lifting my legs hurt. Stairs took me a while too. After we got out of the hospital we took the baby to his doctor the next day, and then every week for a month, and then every month for a check up until 9 months.

[erin_loren]

I had an epidural so I don't know much about what delivering the placenta afterwards would be like without being numb. From what I've read/ heard from other women you don't even think about what's going on after the baby is born, you're too focused on the baby to feel the pain. I also heard that once the baby is born the worse of the contractions are over so the rest is easy.
For me, I decided on getting an epidural, so for the rest of my delivery I only felt pressure and not pain. I had an episiotomy sometime while pushing, it didn't hurt because I was numb and if I didn't know my doctor did it I wouldn't have known it was done during the healing process afterwards. After my son was born I was focused on him for a while, in the coner of my eye I seen my doctor pull something out of me so I turned my focus on her. I seen her plop down this big bloody organ looking thing into a tray (the placenta). Ew. Lol. It looked like something from a horror movie down there. I bled a lot during labor so everything was full of blood including the doctor. I watched her as she pulled out a needle and stared stitching me up. That's all I remember of her working on me, the rest was all about my son. It sounds horrible but really it's not bad.
After the epidural wore off I was given ice packs to keep the pain at bay. I don't remember hurting bad. I just remember being annoyed because they had to keep an IV in my hand to run medicine in me because I lost so much blood. That thing was a pain because the needle was coming loose and I was having trouble nursing because my infant liked to grab it and pull on it. That in itself was worse than anything to do with labor. None of the stinkin laction nurses would acknowledge why I was having trouble nursing either, they ignored the fact that I had a needle in my hand, as soon as it came out I didn't have trouble nursing anymore. (I really disliked the lactation nurses btw) I'm going to refuse to have an IV in my hand after birth this time. Screw that.
Everytime I went to the bathroom I had a routine to follow to help prevent infection. I had a squirt bottle, witch hazel pads, and some numbing spray to use to clean up with everytime. There was an insane amount of blood all the time. I wore these giant pads from the hospital for about a week. As for pain, I remember a little bit of stinging but that was it. I'm pretty sure they gave me a prescription for pain medicine to fill, I never got them. I hate pain medicine and I rather the pain over the feeling of being high that I feel from them. Healing wasn't bad anyways. The hemorrhoids that followed after giving birth were terrible. That's the only thing that would made me cry for pain was having a bm. I would take my contractions back at 6cm rather than having a bm. :/ It was pretty bad.
That's about it. That was my experience after birth. Everyone is diffrenet though. One person's story isn't the same as another's.

[CM6985]

I ended up having a c section, so I can't speak about vaginal delivery, but regardless of delivery (vaginal or c section) expect to have vaginal bleeding for up to 6 weeks after (make sure you have lots of maxi pads). It's normal.