I tore during childbirth and it's not healing

[sunlily]

I received an anterior (upward) tear when I delivered my baby 4 months ago. It was pretty bad and difficult for my midwife to stitch up so I'm lucky it went to the right and didn't damage anything important. The lower half of the tear has all but healed, but the upper half is still bright red and raw. It's pretty painful when anything touches it, so peeing and trying to clean myself up afterwards is not fun. Even water from the shower hurts! At my postpartum appointment at about 8 or 9 weeks, the midwife took a look at it and suggested I make sure I get plenty of vitamin C, sleep without underwear to air it out, try to avoid chafing it, and sitz baths. I've mostly just managed the vitamin C, but my baby is very difficult and I am constantly up and moving with her and just do not have time to sit in a tub for 20 minute sessions, and I still leak pee so no underwear is out. Still, after 4 months I would expect it to at least be a little better?? I would go get it checked out again but I have no insurance for another month and a half. So until then I'm hoping to find some suggestions on what might help? Or at least what my caregiver can or might do to help so I know what to expect?

[sunlily]

Thank you! I used witch hazel right after birth but didn't think to keep using it, I'll try that again. I've also tried using the peri bottle again but the water touching the area hurt so bad that I stopped. I forgot to mention that the area that hurts isn't still a tear, at least that I can see. It's like a flap of tissue, basically like a third lip. That's why I was wondering what they might do about it, because other than finding a way to get it to heal or (eek) cutting it off and dealing with that wound I can't think of what could be done.

I can't even imagine tearing like that, wow!

[ChristineMP]

You might want to try Tucks pads to help with the discomfort. Use a spray bottle and lint free cloth or paper to pat the area dry instead of wiping.

Hopefully, once you see a gynecologist they will be able to restitch it or perhaps glue it (speaking of glue, I've heard of midwives using superglue rather than stitches to close tears...if you can't get to a health care provider, perhaps someone can help you glue the edges??)

When I was doing my Maternal Child clinical rotation in nursing school, we had a patient (an immigrant from a third world country) who had torn during a previous delivery such that there was NO divide between her vagina and rectum and she had been that way for over 3 years! She was in giving birth to another child (can you even imagine having sex with a tear like that?!?!?!?!? Yeeeouch!)