|
Recovery From Giving Birth
With a wonderful new baby in the house, you'll experience so much joy. But you also may experience sadness for a time-postpartum blues-and any number of other feelings. This roller-coaster ride is normal for both first-time and "experienced" moms and is related to hormonal changes in your body. Support from your partner, family, and friends can help you through these times. But if you feel out of control or hampered in your ability to care for your baby, talk with your doctor. Physical recovery You can begin your road to recovery while you're still in the hospital. Start with Kegel exercises. Simply squeeze and relax the muscles that surround the urethra as if you were stopping the flow of urine. When you're home and have regained some of your strength, get your doctor's okay and then gradually build up to stretching, walking, swimming, and stationary cycling. For guidance and moral support, call a local fitness center for information about joining a postpartum exercise class. Be good to yourself Proper nutrition can speed your emotional and physical recovery. Now is not the time to go on a crash diet, especially if you're breastfeeding. Instead, take this time in your life to continue the healthy eating habits you began during pregnancy. Staying on a good postpartum nutrition course will be a big help-you'll need energy to help you recover and to take care of your new baby. Eating a well-balanced nutritious diet can help speed up your recovery. A difference in recovery for women who had vaginal birth vs. women given C-sections After a vaginal birth, a new mother may experience discomfort in her genital area, particularly if she had an episiotomy or tearing, as well as hemorrhoids (one third of women after a vaginal delivery). She may also feel sharp lower back pain if her coccyx was displaced (10 percent of women). She may take longer to find sexual intercourse pleasurable again (20 percent of women who had stitches find intercourse painful three months after giving birth). After a cesarean section, a new mother may experience discomfort as her digestive functions return to normal due to trapped gas. Her scar may itch and burn. Occasional pain and burning sensations can last for six to eight weeks. She will have to wait longer to start an exercise program (about ten weeks). How long should women wait between pregnancies? Why is this important? It depends on the number of pregnancies you have already had, the type of birth you had, how tired you were, how well your body recovered (especially your pelvic floor tone). It is interesting to note that in primitive societies, babies are naturally spaced about every two years as their mothers breastfeed almost constantly for a year (the only way that breastfeeding works as a contraceptive). Obviously, the more fully recovered you are from your previous pregnancy, the better your next pregnancy will feel. Exercise To Help Episiotomies, tears and abnormal straining during the expulsion phase all add to the damage. If the pelvic floor muscles are not restored to their proper tone, the sphincters can no longer clamp down properly on the bladder (and in some cases on the anal) opening, causing leakage. It is essential to begin gentle pelvic floor toning exercises in the days after childbirth and to practice these for nine minutes a day for the first six weeks. Pelvic floor exercises are also very helpful in speeding the healing process after an episiotomy or tearing. Before birth, we prepare our bodies to open up but we forget that closing up also requires effort. This process is essential to becoming a woman again as pelvic floor tone has a direct impact on the quality of sex.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
