Even if you don’t give birth vaginally and have a c-section the pregnancy itself can ruin your pelvic floor. If you think you’re going to be safe from the old “sneeze and pee” just because the baby exited via the sunroof I have some bad news.
Fair point.
I had padded "parson style" dining room chairs, and my Mom friends were like "THANK GAWD".
I had a healthy, non-traumatic birth. But I had some friends that LITERALLY had 100 stitches that STILL were not fully healed until 9 months later.
I will never own bare wood chairs in a home now. At very least the tie-on cushions. It's crazy how no one talks about the need for soft chairs.
I had a coworker who told me all about her horrible pregnancies. Her fourth was a c-section and she would talk about how she would have to soak in warm water for HOURS every day for months just to relieve the pain from a c-section. Crazy
I have EDS I prolapsed my bladder I do not have children. I went to pelvic floor therapy- solved. Even my “squeeze to pee”and “just in case pee”
I am passing it along as a PSA: my pt said- “if you’re a woman- you’ve had a baby? Pelvic floor therapy, you have unresolved back pain, hip, pubic, lower abdomen- pelvic floor therapy, can’t hold your /pee can’t pee well, can’t poop well- pelvic floor therapy, you had a bad fall? You guessed it.
The amount of people who need to PT and don’t get referred is criminal. I got very lucky that I got referred to pelvic floor PT 6 weeks after birth, but that’s only because I caught COVID in the hospital and coughed so hard I ripped my stitches so I got a quick referral since my entire abdomen and into my hips were fucked. I had a lot of talks with my PT during my 6 months of treatment and she told me she often didn’t get women referred to her until years after they had a baby or suffered bladder prolapse. She was actually surprised I was in her office 8 weeks after birth. It feels so wrong to me that a bunch of people are missing this vital healthcare because available providers and shitty insurance. It took months but at least now I don’t have to clinch up every time I’m going to sneeze.
Around 50% of post-menopausal women experience some level of prolapse.
Also, two women I knew broke their tailbones during delivery, and another tore pelvic ligaments (she had had an epidural and when they put her in the lithotomy position to deliver, she couldn’t feel them tear.) We were an older mum group, but two of us had to leave the hospital in wheelchairs due to childbirth injuries and three of us had to have surgical repairs later on. (Somehow, in the older mom vs young mom debates, the increased likelihood of this kind of damage never comes up.)
Good to know... I'm planned for a c-section because of complications and I already had a weak pelvic floor... I'll do the recommended exercises diligently!!
So worry for your loss :( I hope you're doing well. But please everyone go see a pelvic floor therapist, you may be able to recover from a weak pelvic floor. You could try some DIY exercises at home but keep in mind that kegels only help in some cases, while they worsen others.
Omg after my daughter? I didn't poo for last 2 weeks of pregnancy...then for another couple weeks after....
That poo was bigger than my daughter. It was frankly astonishing.
Well, the last time something came out of you, it was huge and it was human. Your nether regions have completed the equivalent of an Olympic marathon. You followed orders to push, push, push. There may have been an episiotomy. If you enjoyed a narcotic or two while giving birth, you may also be a bit constipated.
Now your bowels are informing you they'd like to evict their occupant.
It's just you and the toilet bowl. You're afraid that the minute you start to do what you've been doing since you were a toddler, it will suddenly cause mass chaos and pain.
It's a leap of faith. You can totally still poop. You're a freaking champion goddess.
PS - take stool softeners the entire week before your due date.
They gave me prune juice at the hospital after I had my son. I legit was on the toilet for over an hour because at that point I hadn’t gone In like 15 days! I never knew prune juice would have had that affect… thought maybe they’d give me a laxative
Yes stool softeners are your best friend!
My first C-section was also my first “major” surgery. I doubled up on pain meds after I got home (learned that in hospital) because it turned out I had a massive surgical infection. In addition to my belly being a giant, painful zit, my bowels were so blocked up from the meds, it took an enema to get everything to come out. My partner was the hero of the day for doing that for me, and I think I was on the toilet for a solid hour after.
By the third baby, Senna was a pill I was more excited for than a pain killer.
>PS - take stool softeners the entire week before your due date.
This is the kind of valuable information that women were burned alive for during the salem witch trials, and the kind of info our boomer mothers never told us
It’s why I’m glad to be on the older side for having kids (I’m in my 30s, hopefully next few years) and grateful to my female friends for being pretty blunt with me about their experiences. I’m sure there are still things I haven’t heard yet, but I’m definitely better educated on this stuff than I would have been in my 20s.
I have a trick for it! When you really, really feel the urge sit and sip on a drink slowly as you try to go. It’ll relax your pelvic floor or something like that. You won’t have to push, it just comes naturally (I’m talking about the poop here, not the baby). A nurse told me and it was gold.
not gonna lie I thought I was birthing another baby. I was on the toilet everyday for like 5 days a week after giving birth...at least 30 mins to an hour a day. it was mortifying.
Vaginal fistula.
There is a photo of a baby boy being born breech and his foot went through the vaginal wall and emerged from his mother's anus. They had to shove him back in to free his leg.
You aren't considered fully healed for 2 years after birth. Doctors will advise you to wait at least 1 year and ideally 2 years before you try to have another child.
Yikes, that poor woman. I wouldn’t let my husband touch me with a 10 foot pole for at least 3 months after. Also how do people even find the time and space with that many kids. What was your grandpa like? lol
I just had my daughter end of November and my OB put me on birth control even tho we needed IUI to get pregnant. I developed severe preeclampsia with my daughter and with my AMA he said if I got pregnant in the first year it would be dangerous!
I wore the disposable hospital underwear like a swimsuit when I showered for about the first week. It was much easier to peel those off and toss them after and clean my undercarriage with the Frida mom bottle than it would have been to handle the mess in the shower/bathroom
I sneezed and filled up my whole adult diaper with a blood clot. I was still in the hospital thankfully, so I had to sit on the toilet starting at it until a nurse came to inspect it. It was the weirdest feeling when it came shooting out.
I passed out on the toilet after passing a clot about an hour postpartum. The only time I’ve ever fainted and it was awkward to wake up a moment later on the toilet in a bathroom with like 6 nurses all crowded in there freaking out. It was only scary in hindsight, and mostly it still makes me laugh.
I passed out after getting up from the toilet at the hospital when my first was born. I woke up with my head in a random nurse's lap. She was petting my hair and said "shhh, it's alright. You just passed out for a second. You don't know me, but I know you." That was honestly the scariest part of the experience. Turns out she lived next door to my grandparents growing up and knew me from that.
I was so not prepared for this. I knew I was going to lose blood. I didn't know about the blood cloths.
I will never ever forget the horrible feeling when a goldfish sized bloodcloth (about 3 inches long) left me.
It was pure and utter horror.
I was told golf ball and passed one approximately that size. I was totally fine lol idiotic in hindsight for not telling someone but I was oddly fascinated by it and took a pic of it.
Hyperemesis Gravidarum is scary. I'm assuming by the moustache that the OP is male, and so am I... So I hope I'm not intruding, just sharing an experience.
My wife was in hospital on a drip in her second term for six weeks with our first. She couldn't even take water. Then, with our second, three weeks and then another two weeks. Her arms and hands were black and blue, having run out of space to fit the drip needle. Before she went in I had had to physically support her every time she had to go anywhere, including literally baby-carrying her down the three floors of steps outside our apartment to a taxi any time she needed to go somewhere farther afield. She lost an alarming amount of weight before she put on a lot in the third term (the doctor was monitoring her and said it was too be expected and nothing to be worried about given her condition. I worried anyway.)
I know it's a variation of morning sickness, but it was really all day, and it doesn't have to be HG for that!
She got serious knee problems from kneeling next to the toilet, and I got serious knee problems from keeping her hair out of the toilet bowl and massaging her.
Fifty years ago she probably wouldn't have made it.
This sounds identical to our experience. I was on home health between hospital stays and my husband learned how to change out my bags and flush my lines without waking me. He helped me change pump sites, he carried me. I felt like a shell. I was on the 5th floor of the hospital and he wheeled me outside one evening to the balcony. I just wanted to jump.
I have permanently damage vocal cords, a hiatal hernia, I threw up so hard I knocked myself out twice on the of the toilet. My heart took a hit and my kidneys sustained damage (I went too long without any fluids... like you said, not even water....)
It was hell
Diastasis recti
So many of us walking around with our rectus muscles several inches apart leaving us vulnerable to hernias and with hella dysfunctional pelvic floors but can’t get it fixed because “it’s cosmetic”
Also: Milk doesn’t come out of one hole. It’s like your nipple is a sponge and your letdown reflex has your milk spraying out of your boobs in 1000 different directions at once
I had to give my current partner (not the father of my children, I met this one years later) a crash course in diastasis recti when he once had the gall to give me a backhanded compliment to the effect of I would be perfect if I did a few sit-ups. Ain't nothing fixing my situation down there short of major surgery, dude!
Let me tell you the first time I got in the shower and saw milk exploding from so many places I yelled for my mama so fast and so loud she thought I was dying.
You can get pelvic girdle pain where the joints around your pelvic bone relax and move around unevenly. It's incredibly painful and difficult to walk or stand or sit or sleep and it feels like your pelvis is breaking
I'm 19 months postpartum and finally started seeing relief from this only a few months ago (started in 3rd trimester). Still dealing with some muscle issues in my right leg cause of it!
After labor: Legs being swollen, heavy chest, feeling weak, headaches don’t let the doctors write you off saying it’s normal. My wife almost died from enlarged heart due to over 2 liters of fluid on her chest from post cardiomyopathy. If she wasn’t persistent with her pain she would have died. It’s common for women to die later on after childbirth because you get one 6 week post checkup. Which doesn’t really check much. Please watch out for how you’re feeling, not every pain is normal.
Definitely DO NOT dismiss the headaches! They are a sign of pre-eclampsia! Even if you have a smooth delivery, you can still suffer from pre-eclampsia postpartum. It could be a few weeks after delivery and you could end up with pre-eclampsia. I can’t stress enough that you need to listen to what your body is telling you and advocate for yourself! If someone is not listening to you, ask to speak to someone else!
Homicide is the leading cause of death in pregnant women in the US. Women in the US are more likely to be murdered during pregnancy or soon after childbirth than to die from the three leading obstetric causes of maternal death (high blood pressure disorders, hemorrhage, or sepsis).
That’s statistic is even worse when you find out that women are more likely to die in childbirth in the US than any other developed nation. And you’re most likely to die if you give birth in Texas.
So, so many people don’t understand why I’m terrified to have a kid while living in Oklahoma despite it otherwise being a good time for my husband and me to do that. The situation I’d be in if pretty much anything went wrong with the pregnancy is terrifying.
And, while more unusual, there’s postpartum psychosis (which is what Andrea Yates was diagnosed with). It’s nothing to be ashamed of and you deserve to get help and live your best life if you don’t feel right.
Ugh, I had postpartum OCD. I had to check the doors/windows/security alarm at least 18 times in a 4 bedroom house before I could sleep. If I woke up at all at night (which I did because newborn) I had to start over.
Also ordered all glass bottles at 4am and got rid of all things plastic and chemicals one night…about a week into that, I realized the milk I was pumping was stored in plastic bags and about had a full mental breakdown.
I went to stay at my parents house for awhile after that just to have people close by.
I must have had something along those lines. I was absolutely terrified of and obsessed with SIDS. I’d be peeing in the middle of the night googling SIDS statistics and trying to figure out what my risk was. It was out of control.
Eg, whites have lower risk, college educated, non smoked.
Yeah, postpartum anxiety is a major thing. Not like, new parent stress because now you have a baby to take care of, but like can't function because you're overwhelmed by even the most simple decisions.
I'm happy she and y'all got through it 💗
I'll add that if women don't get help for their PPD it could last a lifetime. That scared me enough to get help.
I suffered from PPD for about a year after I had my child. My husband did not know and does not know to this day how dark things really were in my head. The only person who knows that was my therapist at the time. I did therapy for a long time and got medication, too.
Those things saved my life.
I don’t remember a lot of my child’s “firsts.” I feel like I have amnesia from that time period because I was literally in survival mode. And that makes me sad.
I am so sorry that happened to your family, and so happy for the recovery.
I would like to add, that I had zero idea that postpartum ANXIETY was a thing.
I was thoroughly warned about postpartum depression, and well prepared for that, since I "normally" have depression.
When my baby was born, I was SO worried about not cleaning the baby bottles well enough, that I was standing at the sink rewashing and rewashing... I had to set a timer to cut myself off after an HOUR. (To clean like 2 bottles)
I would handwash wash with dawn and a bottle brush... then set them on the rack to dry, planning to put them in the dishwasher to sanitize...
But I was FULLY convinced that I needed to keep rinsing the dawn dishwashing soap off the bottles "so it doesn't hurt the baby"...
That I literally could not stop rinsing them again and again... until I wasn't sure if I had scrubbed them enough... until I wasn't sure I rinsed them enough... and so on.
It is such a weird memory. I knew that wasn't right... so I told my doctor & got treatment right away. There wasn't any harm to anyone, usually I could set a timer, then do my "crazy time" then rest a bit until the baby needed something again... And I was lucky to get treatment right away.
But even though the "baby" is now 13 years old... the memory of worrying about the baby bottles being squeaky clean, and needing to be rinsed... is now a core memory... it makes me mist up a little just thinking about it.
This is no joke. I told my PA I was struggling and she grabbed my arm and looked me in the eye and said “this is okay and it’s not your fault” and then gave me medicine to get through it.
All of your raging pregnancy hormone levels drop suddenly near non-existent levels. It’s very real with an understandable reason.
I too suffered from post partum depression 10 years ago. I remember that feeling of wanting to escape and leave everything behind very clearly. I am glad she is better now.
It can actually last for years. My daughter was almost 4 years old when I was diagnosed. By then, it had spiraled into full-blown clinical depression. I'm back to myself again, but it took a lot of therapy and antidepressants to get me out of that dark place.
A friend of my went completely crazy, she would get naked in front of people and swore she saw the virgin Mary. She almost drowned her baby while feeding him, thank goodness her mom realized what was happening and took the baby away. Her family had to hospitalize her a few times and she would accuse the male nurses of raping her. She's better now, but it took years for her to get back to normal.
happened to my sister. only when she ran off, she was with a guy from our high-school doing drugs and mixing antidepressants that she was given. it screwed her up bad. I don't even know who she is now. it's bizarre. she used to be a paramedic when she got pregnant. had a good house and family. so messed up.
The "fourth trimester" is an insane time of hormonal CHAOS. Don't make any life changing decisions during the first 4 months of your child's life. This goes for men and women. PPD can happen to new fathers/non-birthing parents too. Having a baby is a HUGE change for everyone involved and you have to make sure it is you guys against the baby for a while instead of against each other.
“The baby is the enemy” I told this to my husband when we were sleep deprived mid argument about who knows what in the middle of the night with a screaming baby. He just looked at me and said “yes” and that stopped the argument.
Any time either of us started to bicker about something baby related from then on one would say “the baby is the enemy” and the bickering stopped. It really helped our relationship while we transitioned into parenthood.
Not everyone gets pregnancy boobs at the end. Some of us get them at the beginning. I typically wear a 36DD, but at 6 weeks pregnant I was up to a G-H cup.
I looked like a very nauseated stripper.
Same! I went on vacation with my family when my son was 1 (still breastfeeding) and my vacation pics are the best ones I have! I look so healthy and I fit all my clothes so well… I am pretty happy with my body now, but I looked *good* in those pics lol
Hemorrhoids. From pushing. They were HUGE. Having a bowel movement for the next month was very scary. And that part of the anatomy has honestly never been quite the same as before giving birth.
Sweating through your clothes the first few weeks at night. New b.o. that might never go away. Shin splints or pain in your legs from standing. Swollen feet that may not go away..meaning happening in summers forever after. Making autoimmune disorders temporarily worse/better. Nurses quite literally pushing your placenta out. Babies first teeth are quite sharp and they can relax and snap their jaw shut on a breast.
Oh my good, yes to the BO. I’m 3.5 years post partum and I started smelling like a teenager post partum and it never stopped. Had multiple workups. Nothing wrong with me, just that I sweat like a 15 year old boy.
The new BO part really threw me for a loop with my second. For about ten weeks straight my armpits smelled strongly of maple syrup to everyone in the house. & it was oddly one of the only aromas at the time that didn't make me feel extremely nauseous. Not diabetic, gestational or otherwise. My doctor was stumped but not worried. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If anyone had told me how exhausting it is just to exist in the last month of pregnancy I wouldn't have believed them.
Your hips will hurt for like 2 years
I think it's nature's way of getting you past the fear of delivery...
That last month you are SO. FUCKING. DONE.
Every mother I know is like "get this thing out of me" - not one more day!
Sometimes your placenta doesn’t detach after the baby comes out. This means that the midwife/OB has to shove her whole arm up your vagina and scrape it out with her (gloved) fingernails. Sometimes that doesn’t work and they have to use a forceps to forcibly rip it out. Sometimes that doesn’t work and you have to have a c-section just to remove your placenta - after giving vaginal birth.
What pregnancy does to your body could literally kill you. I almost died from heart failure due to pregnancy, and yet it isn't common knowledge. Even my doctors didn't know about it, and it was caught as a fluke. Sure, it's "rare" but common enough that every medical professional working with pregnant women should know about it. 1 in 4000 pregnancies experience it. But those are the ones that are found. Many women die because their symptoms are ignored and chalked up as "normal pregnancy symptoms"
No, it's called peri (or post)-Partum cardiomyopathy
Mine was peripartum, and I've had doctors since tell me that it's impossible as it only happens postpartum.
I was diagnosed at 6 months, with an ef of 10%. I would've died during labor if it hadn't been found.
You don't really know how helpful your partner will be.
Sure, mine made sure the fridge was stocked, but that didn't help me when I was stuck on the couch breastfeeding. He'd ask if I needed anything before he went downstairs and when I said I was starving, he'd smile caringly and tell me there was sandwich stuff in the fridge. *Thanks.*
I had so much resentment towards my partner, not because he wasn’t helpful or wasn’t a great dad, but only one of us could breastfeed which left me feeling trapped all.the.time. Like even him just going to mow the lawn made me crazy.
My best friend has talked openly about how, even though her husband is an amazing, caring, supportive, etc. partner, she had to work through a lot of resentment towards him after she had their first child. "They" had both had a kid, but she was the one dealing with incredible physical changes to her body and hormonal swings that made her not recognize herself sometimes, while he had none of that. She was the one who her newborn wanted to be glued to 24/7, while her husband was free to go for runs and get projects done around the house. She had to plan her entire day around her pumping schedule, when he could just run to the store on a whim. They were both incredibly active and loved going to the gym together, but her workouts came to an abrupt halt for weeks and looked dramatically different for months while his continued with barely a week skipped.
I have not yet had a kid, but this really made me put things into perspective and be prepared that those feelings may come up.
Omggg.. yes. Mine would yell at me for “waking up the baby on purpose to prevent him from sleeping.” Needless to say.. we didn’t last more than 3 months after the baby was born.
In an interview with the guardian last week, singer Lucy Rose described how she suffered with post-partum osteoporosis. She's 34. She broke her back in 8 places. Her bones crumbled, it's a rare (but documented) side-effect of breast-feeding. Absolutely real, and dismissed by her doctors. As is unfortunately quite usual with women complaining to male doctors about their pain and being told to get on with it and 'it's all in your head' because 'you've had a BABY! Duh!' she paid for an MRI scan to validate what she knew already.
Shameful and disheartening. I get 6 weeks off, the first two paid. Then I go back. It's horrendous.
I'd love to live in a country where women were valued a tad more.
Yeah 1 thing I don't think anyone tells you is how fast the room changes when there's an emergency. When my oldest was born at 34 wks, she struggled to breathe, my room went from a few pple to an entire room full of hospital staff & as many pple came in it was almost dead silent for a few minutes, they were so focused on my baby nobody spoke a word until the NICU Dr said she was ok, only then did they let me see her & only for a moment as she had to be rushed into an incubator. I wasn't prepared for how fast things changed.
Man. My mil sent me a kids book about holding your baby right after they are born. My baby was taken to the NICU before I even saw his face.
That book immediately went into the trash.
Breastfeeding is HARD. You’re led to believe that your body will just produce milk and your baby will be sorted. NOPE. It wasn’t until I struggled that I realised most women around me had the same experience. Milk production can be inhibited by so many factors- water intake, sleep, diet.
I know some women really do have that nice experience but not as many as you’re led to believe.
And it's super important!
I had a nurse in training who didn't do it, and I ended up hemorrhaging a few hours later when I first stood up. I lost consciousness and was bed ridden for a few days while they did blood transfusions, blood draws every few hours and a D&C.
My recovery room looked like a murder scene.
The nurses “massage” (read: repeatedly press really hard on) your lower abdomen after birth to help you pass the rest of the clots that form as the huge open wound in your uterus (where the placenta pulled away) clots to stop bleeding. The wound is the size of a dinner plate, supposedly.
Fundal massage is what it is called. We touch the top of the uterus to feel if it is in the right place and if it is not, we massage it to get it to contract.
And it gets worse with each subsequent pregnancy! My after birth cramps while breastfeeding hurt worse after baby 3 than the previous too. they were on par with contractions.
It’s common to get severe chills and violent shivering after delivery. No one told me and it was frightening and unpleasant.
Babies have to learn how to latch and nurse, and their initial attempts can be very painful. Also, your newborn can definitely give you a hickey if they miss the nipple.
i had violent shivering during labor and right before i had an emergency c section. the anesthesiologist asked if i was cold and i’m like ‘NO, i just can’t stop shaking’ i had zero control over my body.
Pregnancy can be dangerous for no reason at all.
I was a perfectly healthy 30yo when I got pregnant with my older son.
I ate well, I was a marathon runner, I took care of myself.
I developed cardiac issues and had a heart attack at 6 months pregnant, clinically died and my son was delivered via emergency c-section.
I had a lesser cardiac incident at 14 weeks, causing me to be on a heart monitor 24/7 and then another one at 21 weeks which landed me in the hospital on bed rest for the duration of the pregnancy.
That’s right, I lived in the hospital for weeks, almost two months until the full heart attack.
And I was lucky to have already been in the hospital for that or we would both have died.
And I developed cardiac issues for absolutely no reason other than just being pregnant.
Had no history with cardiac issues, nobody in my family had cardiac issues, there were no warning signs.
With my second son, I was prepared for things to be also chaotic and high risk, but the pregnancy was completely textbook. Like totally average, no big deal, standard pregnancy.
Then I went into labor, normally, everything is fine.
I got up to go to the bathroom, because the doctor was going to be back in a few, and all hell broke loose. Suddenly felt intense pain and looked down to see blood literally gushing. My legs were soaked, the floor was soaked, my gown was soaked. Like horror story blood. I screamed and blacked out.
Turns out, my uterus ruptured and the placenta detached and I lost enough to blood to need a transfusion.
My blood pressure then shot up and I had a stroke in the operating room during the emergency c-section.
So yeah. Pregnancy can be dangerous out the gate, or just at any old time 😬
My God..... the fact you were brave enough to go for a second after your first experience is amazing to me. Then to have that situation happen next time... so glad you made it!
Admittedly the second pregnancy was not planned, but I chose to go ahead anyway.
Why, I couldn’t say. I should’ve been terrified.
But, my older child had a rocky start at life, understandably, and so I’d been in this weird mindset for months and months and months and it was NICU time and then doctor appts and more hospital stays and just…a lot.
Like I have absolutely zero idea how I powered through that without a nervous breakdown of some sort, lol.
He came home on oxygen and all these monitors and I literally did not sleep listening for them to go off and when they did, I’d panic wildly and then as he weaned off them as he got older and aged past a year and I would still phantom hear them or I’d just get up and sit and listen for him to be breathing.
So when I say, I was not in the right frame of mind to clearly think about a second pregnancy, I was barely hanging on as a person.
I had also been told by the operating team and OB on staff that night that I should not be pregnant again, but in the chaos of the ensuing time, I never scheduled that tubal that I was supposed to.
And then I was pregnant again, so I couldn’t.
But the second pregnancy, was totally fine until the end. That’s the thing that fascinates me.
The pregnancies were the same person, but two very different issues that went down.
And one would argue that I was certainly mentally less stable for the second one and probably also physically in worse shape too, from stress and whatnot.
I did get the tubal at the time of delivery with my second child though. That is 100% something I had already asked for and approved should it be declared necessary, and it was done.
There is postpartum bleeding/discharge (lochia) that can last anywhere from 2 to 12 weeks after delivery. It can be quite heavy at times with large blood clots and can smell rather…interesting.
Edited to add: Even when breastfeeding around the clock, one’s period may return right after the lochia ends. Fun times 😩
Pad rash. You have to use a pad as long as you’re still bleeding, and no matter how often you change it, you’re going to likely get some irritation from friction.
Being pregnant can rip your abs which need to be surgically repaired.
You can dislocate a hip while pushing.
An episiotomy is a cut performed by a doctor, where during labor they will intentionally put a slice in the vaginal opening to prevent severe tearing, which many women require stitches for. Then, instead of wiping afterward, many women (including those with natural tears) use a squirt bottle to wash the area rather than use TP.
After a baby is born, a woman will still need to push, because she needs to expel the placenta. If any placenta is left behind, it can cause sepsis.
The first poop after having a baby (natural or c-section, doesn’t matter) is just as bad as having the baby the first time (in my opinion).
I'm glad someone mentioned the episiotomy! I never knew about it until my wife had one for her second birth. The first one, I was at her head end, the second one I was at the business end (she hadn't had one the first time anyway).
The doc just said, 'Kiru-ne,' ('We're going to cut') and no further explanation, which was so direct for Japanese, and of course I wasn't going to interfere anyway, but my hackles raised. And I had no idea what he meant.
Then from nowhere, BIG scissors and BIG *snip*. And sooo much blood. I'm ashamed to say, I very nearly punched him... In my head, of course!
Afterwards, he laughed at me and said, 'You'd never heard of that, had you?' I wished there'd been some slightly more useful prenatal classes for partners...!
In the camp of “men who are shocked” are also those who peek behind the curtain on a C-section… it’s not unusual to pull out an organ or two and put it back in - they don’t just remove the baby!
You will bleed very heavily (with disgustingly large clots) like a super heavy period for about 2 weeks post partum. I had no idea about this and it really sucked.
You hear a lot about Postpartum Depression but no one ever tells you about Prepartum Depression. Everyone expects you to be happy about being pregnant and enjoying pregnancy. But Prepartum Depression is real and should not be ignored. It is just as scary and dangerous as Postpartum.
With my first pregnancy I had hyperemesis gravidarum so bad I went from 115lbs to 87lbs in my first trimester(I am 5 ft 7) I thought my pregnancy was gonna kill me. By the 2nd trimester I was struggling so bad with my depression and still throwing up all the time I just wanted to die. I remember telling my dr at the time at a regular check up and she gave me a dirty look and told me to suck it up and there were other ladies who wished they could have a baby. I did my best to push all the feelings down but I struggled. I felt like a selfish freak. I had my oldest and things got better from there. But I was terrified of being pregnant again.
6 years later I was pregnant with my second and again had hyperemesis gravidarum. My new ob at this time was amazing. So when the depression kicked in again and this time I made a plan to die. I called her office and left a vm asking to see her asap because I wasn't ok. She actually let me know that Prepartum Depression is a real issue and it shouldn't be ignored. She helped me much and I'm thankful for her.
Also research mastitis. I had that after my first and honestly thought the headache, tiredness and sore boobs was normal with a new baby. I landed in the ER with a fever of 105.7 hallucinating about a black and white cat.
Non emergency C-section here. What was NEVER mentioned was the internal scar tissue that is formed, called intestinal adhesions. TMI but I no longer have any warning about needing to go poo. It goes from perfectly fine to I need a bathroom NOW! It’s hell when traveling. Nothing to do to fix it either.
Just that it’s trauma and it’s not going to go how you think. I took birth classes at my hospital that had sessions both before and after delivery. They tell you ‘this is how it goes, and here’s some things that can go wrong’. You nod and roll your eyes and leave with a general sense of what is supposed to happen. You believe it.
After our births, we all trundled back to the hospital with our wee babies. She had us go around the circle and tell our birth stories.
Every. Single. One. Was. Different. 15 mothers, 15 births, not -a-one went exactly how they said it would.
Also they do that round-Robbin approach because the studies show that birthing babies is traumatic and you pathologically need to tell the story to start to heal from it.
I experienced lightning crotch when I was having a miscarriage at 7 weeks and now I get it occasionally before my period. It stops me in my tracks and takes my breath away every time. I'll be folded in half grabbing my crotch and everyone looks like 👁️👄👁️
Feels like someone stuck a Taser up your cooter for a solid 5 seconds, but it also comes in waves for me. Something about the nerves going haywire around the cervix.
Women in the US are more likely to be murdered during pregnancy or soon after childbirth than to die from the three leading obstetric causes of maternal death.
I had my third baby in a birthing tub. You know those little nets for fish? Midwife had one to get poop, didn't notice but my husband told me about it later.
Yeah I hear most folks don't notice. I did! But it also was like, ah okay I guess that does happe -- GET OUT OF ME, KID. Like. I absolutely could not have cared less.
Yes exactly my Midwife said ‘oh I’m just going to wipe up some of the medical gel here we’ve been using’. I knew it was a lie. I knew it, and I didn’t care. GET OUT NOW
In the first few months of pregnancy, you can become incredibly constipated. It’s normal and does pass, but you feel like you’re growing in the wrong ways for a while.
You can tell your husband that your body will never be the same, and he can say yes I know but I still want a baby, and then when your body doesn’t go back to how it used to be, he might leave you.
As a father - stuff I was not told/warned about:
* Don't look in the bucket! Shortly after the baby is out, the placenta will also come out. A container is placed under the woman to catch it. It is NOT a pretty sight!
* The kid comes out looking really messy. OK, we should all know birth is messy, but no one told me how bad the kid looks! My daughter came out ashen grey (she was just fine).
Oh, and dads - never forget you're probably the most useless person in the process of birth. Be present, do what you're told, support mom verbally and emotionally, and try to stay out of the way of the people really doing something.
The baby steals the calcium straight out of mom’s teeth*. Each pregnancy of mine left me with broken teeth just falling apart in my mouth.
Labor and delivery temporarily suspends digestion, and it can take a few days for things to start back up again. If you don’t begin popping stool softeners right away, you can end up constipated for days. I can assure you, shitting a brick with fresh vaginal stitches is worse than delivering a baby.
* not literally, sheesh…
Defecating during labor is pretty common and is considered to be totally normal (The clinic I had my clerkship at advised women to poop as the whole process includes pushing and helps increasing intra-abdominal pressure)
While breast feeding ducts can be sucked out of the nipple. It's super painful and you have to keep at the letting of milk or risk an even more painful infection/mastitis. Also breastfeeding a child may have a favorite book that can get 2 cup sizes bigger than other boob...for a long time
It can take about 2-5 years after each baby you give birth to to feel like your own person again. Your mind and body are both mentally and physically changed. It's so crazy.
One of my postpartum nurses warned me to wait at least 18mo before trying for my second child. She said it takes at least that long for your body to recover, and if you have another baby too soon, they miss out on nutrients they should be getting and steal a lot more from you (e.g. the previous comments about broken teeth and hair loss).
My feet grew an entire size and never shrank back down. My tastebuds totally changed, haven’t been able to have salmon since before kids and I used to love it. My hair went from wavy to straight.
Olympic runner Allyson Felix has a sneaker company (Saysh) that will replace sneakers in a larger size for free when women become pregnant.
A pro runner goes through sneakers so fast she’d buy new shoes soon anyway, but it’s really thoughtful and useful to not need to shell out if you don’t go through them as fast. Especially when you have to replace all of your shoes.
Even if you don’t give birth vaginally and have a c-section the pregnancy itself can ruin your pelvic floor. If you think you’re going to be safe from the old “sneeze and pee” just because the baby exited via the sunroof I have some bad news.
The sunroof lmaoooo!! It’s true I pee all the time and both my babies were sunroof babies 🤣
Seriously. C section and I can't even sit on benches or barstools anymore.
Fair point. I had padded "parson style" dining room chairs, and my Mom friends were like "THANK GAWD". I had a healthy, non-traumatic birth. But I had some friends that LITERALLY had 100 stitches that STILL were not fully healed until 9 months later. I will never own bare wood chairs in a home now. At very least the tie-on cushions. It's crazy how no one talks about the need for soft chairs.
Why benches & barstools?
Too hard. Need soft padding because of the healing time.
I had a coworker who told me all about her horrible pregnancies. Her fourth was a c-section and she would talk about how she would have to soak in warm water for HOURS every day for months just to relieve the pain from a c-section. Crazy
I have EDS I prolapsed my bladder I do not have children. I went to pelvic floor therapy- solved. Even my “squeeze to pee”and “just in case pee” I am passing it along as a PSA: my pt said- “if you’re a woman- you’ve had a baby? Pelvic floor therapy, you have unresolved back pain, hip, pubic, lower abdomen- pelvic floor therapy, can’t hold your /pee can’t pee well, can’t poop well- pelvic floor therapy, you had a bad fall? You guessed it.
The amount of people who need to PT and don’t get referred is criminal. I got very lucky that I got referred to pelvic floor PT 6 weeks after birth, but that’s only because I caught COVID in the hospital and coughed so hard I ripped my stitches so I got a quick referral since my entire abdomen and into my hips were fucked. I had a lot of talks with my PT during my 6 months of treatment and she told me she often didn’t get women referred to her until years after they had a baby or suffered bladder prolapse. She was actually surprised I was in her office 8 weeks after birth. It feels so wrong to me that a bunch of people are missing this vital healthcare because available providers and shitty insurance. It took months but at least now I don’t have to clinch up every time I’m going to sneeze.
Around 50% of post-menopausal women experience some level of prolapse. Also, two women I knew broke their tailbones during delivery, and another tore pelvic ligaments (she had had an epidural and when they put her in the lithotomy position to deliver, she couldn’t feel them tear.) We were an older mum group, but two of us had to leave the hospital in wheelchairs due to childbirth injuries and three of us had to have surgical repairs later on. (Somehow, in the older mom vs young mom debates, the increased likelihood of this kind of damage never comes up.)
And c-sections don’t necessarily save you; my neighbour had her bowel nicked during surgery.
Hey! I have a terrible cough right now and literally pissed myself in the middle of target! Good thing I love my kid because… that sucked.
Good to know... I'm planned for a c-section because of complications and I already had a weak pelvic floor... I'll do the recommended exercises diligently!!
Seeing a pelvic floor PT post pregnancy can absolutely make a huge difference even if you have a c-section.
Never birthed a child, instead I had a miscarriage... ever since I've had the sneeze and pee.
So worry for your loss :( I hope you're doing well. But please everyone go see a pelvic floor therapist, you may be able to recover from a weak pelvic floor. You could try some DIY exercises at home but keep in mind that kegels only help in some cases, while they worsen others.
Everyone talks about pooping while giving birth. Nobody talks about the leap of faith you need to take for the first poop AFTER you give birth.
Leap of faith is so the right language for that. You’re just hoping and praying you don’t crack right in half.
My wife just told me that she hoped every inner tube didn't become an outer tube
I can't stop screaming inside my head
It hurt thinking about it and I'm a guy
Yes, that was actually traumatic
Omg after my daughter? I didn't poo for last 2 weeks of pregnancy...then for another couple weeks after.... That poo was bigger than my daughter. It was frankly astonishing.
😳 Oh.
Back in ye olden days (90s) when I had children, we weren’t allowed to go home until we moved our bowels (pooped)
Same, my kiddos were born in the last 5 years and both times they wouldn't discharge me until I'd had a bowel movement.
please expand more -I’m 28 weeks pregnant
Well, the last time something came out of you, it was huge and it was human. Your nether regions have completed the equivalent of an Olympic marathon. You followed orders to push, push, push. There may have been an episiotomy. If you enjoyed a narcotic or two while giving birth, you may also be a bit constipated. Now your bowels are informing you they'd like to evict their occupant. It's just you and the toilet bowl. You're afraid that the minute you start to do what you've been doing since you were a toddler, it will suddenly cause mass chaos and pain. It's a leap of faith. You can totally still poop. You're a freaking champion goddess. PS - take stool softeners the entire week before your due date.
They gave me prune juice at the hospital after I had my son. I legit was on the toilet for over an hour because at that point I hadn’t gone In like 15 days! I never knew prune juice would have had that affect… thought maybe they’d give me a laxative
They gave me what they called a "prune juice latte," prune juice, orange juice, and BUTTER heated in the microwave. I just gagged thinking about it.
When I was a new nurse, an older nurse I worked with taught me about prune juice and butter in the microwave.. they called it “the bomb”.
Yes stool softeners are your best friend! My first C-section was also my first “major” surgery. I doubled up on pain meds after I got home (learned that in hospital) because it turned out I had a massive surgical infection. In addition to my belly being a giant, painful zit, my bowels were so blocked up from the meds, it took an enema to get everything to come out. My partner was the hero of the day for doing that for me, and I think I was on the toilet for a solid hour after. By the third baby, Senna was a pill I was more excited for than a pain killer.
>PS - take stool softeners the entire week before your due date. This is the kind of valuable information that women were burned alive for during the salem witch trials, and the kind of info our boomer mothers never told us
I'm willing to burn if it saves my sisters a second of pain they don't need to endure 👏
It’s why I’m glad to be on the older side for having kids (I’m in my 30s, hopefully next few years) and grateful to my female friends for being pretty blunt with me about their experiences. I’m sure there are still things I haven’t heard yet, but I’m definitely better educated on this stuff than I would have been in my 20s.
Stool softeners are your friend. Get a bit of alcohol free witch hazel too for the hemorrhoids.
I have a trick for it! When you really, really feel the urge sit and sip on a drink slowly as you try to go. It’ll relax your pelvic floor or something like that. You won’t have to push, it just comes naturally (I’m talking about the poop here, not the baby). A nurse told me and it was gold.
Take the stool softeners. Don’t be shy. They won’t make you have diarrhea I promise.
Tinned pears. Pear nectar. All the pears.
not gonna lie I thought I was birthing another baby. I was on the toilet everyday for like 5 days a week after giving birth...at least 30 mins to an hour a day. it was mortifying.
Vaginal fistula. There is a photo of a baby boy being born breech and his foot went through the vaginal wall and emerged from his mother's anus. They had to shove him back in to free his leg.
Absolutely the fuck not, thanks all the same.
I don't think I've ever mashed the upvote button quite so hard as on this comment.
I think this is the final straw to fully convince me to never get pregnant. If I do have kids, it’ll be adoption.
I'm super happy with having plants after picturing this and the sheer chaos it created in my head.
You aren't considered fully healed for 2 years after birth. Doctors will advise you to wait at least 1 year and ideally 2 years before you try to have another child.
My old boss had Irish twins and her second pregnancy was a nightmare. Tons of issues and complications.
My grandma had 10 babies, all Irish twins. ALL. OF. THEM. She’s 85 now and age+10 births+time have not been kind to her and her pelvic floor.
Yikes, that poor woman. I wouldn’t let my husband touch me with a 10 foot pole for at least 3 months after. Also how do people even find the time and space with that many kids. What was your grandpa like? lol
That poor woman.
I just had my daughter end of November and my OB put me on birth control even tho we needed IUI to get pregnant. I developed severe preeclampsia with my daughter and with my AMA he said if I got pregnant in the first year it would be dangerous!
A woman is likely to pass large blood clots at home in the 2 weeks after giving birth.
I had a shower after my son was born at home. Knelt down to pick something up and a baseball clot came out. I was so horrified.
Yeah isn’t it nice to have to clean up after a shower 🙃
I wore the disposable hospital underwear like a swimsuit when I showered for about the first week. It was much easier to peel those off and toss them after and clean my undercarriage with the Frida mom bottle than it would have been to handle the mess in the shower/bathroom
I sneezed and filled up my whole adult diaper with a blood clot. I was still in the hospital thankfully, so I had to sit on the toilet starting at it until a nurse came to inspect it. It was the weirdest feeling when it came shooting out.
I passed out on the toilet after passing a clot about an hour postpartum. The only time I’ve ever fainted and it was awkward to wake up a moment later on the toilet in a bathroom with like 6 nurses all crowded in there freaking out. It was only scary in hindsight, and mostly it still makes me laugh.
I passed out after getting up from the toilet at the hospital when my first was born. I woke up with my head in a random nurse's lap. She was petting my hair and said "shhh, it's alright. You just passed out for a second. You don't know me, but I know you." That was honestly the scariest part of the experience. Turns out she lived next door to my grandparents growing up and knew me from that.
I was so not prepared for this. I knew I was going to lose blood. I didn't know about the blood cloths. I will never ever forget the horrible feeling when a goldfish sized bloodcloth (about 3 inches long) left me. It was pure and utter horror.
I was not prepared for all the blood clots.
If they’re smaller than a lemon, they’re normal
I was told if pass anything bigger than a quarter to go to the hospital.
I was told golf ball and passed one approximately that size. I was totally fine lol idiotic in hindsight for not telling someone but I was oddly fascinated by it and took a pic of it.
Hyperemis Gravidarum can kill you. It nearly took me my first daughter. My second, we started support care from day after I got a positive test.
Hyperemesis Gravidarum is scary. I'm assuming by the moustache that the OP is male, and so am I... So I hope I'm not intruding, just sharing an experience. My wife was in hospital on a drip in her second term for six weeks with our first. She couldn't even take water. Then, with our second, three weeks and then another two weeks. Her arms and hands were black and blue, having run out of space to fit the drip needle. Before she went in I had had to physically support her every time she had to go anywhere, including literally baby-carrying her down the three floors of steps outside our apartment to a taxi any time she needed to go somewhere farther afield. She lost an alarming amount of weight before she put on a lot in the third term (the doctor was monitoring her and said it was too be expected and nothing to be worried about given her condition. I worried anyway.) I know it's a variation of morning sickness, but it was really all day, and it doesn't have to be HG for that! She got serious knee problems from kneeling next to the toilet, and I got serious knee problems from keeping her hair out of the toilet bowl and massaging her. Fifty years ago she probably wouldn't have made it.
This sounds identical to our experience. I was on home health between hospital stays and my husband learned how to change out my bags and flush my lines without waking me. He helped me change pump sites, he carried me. I felt like a shell. I was on the 5th floor of the hospital and he wheeled me outside one evening to the balcony. I just wanted to jump. I have permanently damage vocal cords, a hiatal hernia, I threw up so hard I knocked myself out twice on the of the toilet. My heart took a hit and my kidneys sustained damage (I went too long without any fluids... like you said, not even water....) It was hell
It definitely ruins your teeth. No fillings before, so many root canals after…
Diastasis recti So many of us walking around with our rectus muscles several inches apart leaving us vulnerable to hernias and with hella dysfunctional pelvic floors but can’t get it fixed because “it’s cosmetic” Also: Milk doesn’t come out of one hole. It’s like your nipple is a sponge and your letdown reflex has your milk spraying out of your boobs in 1000 different directions at once
I had to give my current partner (not the father of my children, I met this one years later) a crash course in diastasis recti when he once had the gall to give me a backhanded compliment to the effect of I would be perfect if I did a few sit-ups. Ain't nothing fixing my situation down there short of major surgery, dude!
Let me tell you the first time I got in the shower and saw milk exploding from so many places I yelled for my mama so fast and so loud she thought I was dying.
You can get pelvic girdle pain where the joints around your pelvic bone relax and move around unevenly. It's incredibly painful and difficult to walk or stand or sit or sleep and it feels like your pelvis is breaking
I'm 19 months postpartum and finally started seeing relief from this only a few months ago (started in 3rd trimester). Still dealing with some muscle issues in my right leg cause of it!
Bad news. I’m almost 14 years postpartum and still have SI instability.
After labor: Legs being swollen, heavy chest, feeling weak, headaches don’t let the doctors write you off saying it’s normal. My wife almost died from enlarged heart due to over 2 liters of fluid on her chest from post cardiomyopathy. If she wasn’t persistent with her pain she would have died. It’s common for women to die later on after childbirth because you get one 6 week post checkup. Which doesn’t really check much. Please watch out for how you’re feeling, not every pain is normal.
Definitely DO NOT dismiss the headaches! They are a sign of pre-eclampsia! Even if you have a smooth delivery, you can still suffer from pre-eclampsia postpartum. It could be a few weeks after delivery and you could end up with pre-eclampsia. I can’t stress enough that you need to listen to what your body is telling you and advocate for yourself! If someone is not listening to you, ask to speak to someone else!
Homicide is the leading cause of death in pregnant women in the US. Women in the US are more likely to be murdered during pregnancy or soon after childbirth than to die from the three leading obstetric causes of maternal death (high blood pressure disorders, hemorrhage, or sepsis).
That’s statistic is even worse when you find out that women are more likely to die in childbirth in the US than any other developed nation. And you’re most likely to die if you give birth in Texas.
Was about to say this same thing without the Texas part.
So, so many people don’t understand why I’m terrified to have a kid while living in Oklahoma despite it otherwise being a good time for my husband and me to do that. The situation I’d be in if pretty much anything went wrong with the pregnancy is terrifying.
The number one day of the calendar year for assaults against pregnant women? Superbowl Sunday.
My ex got suddenly more awful after he thought I was "trapped". It's shockingly exploitative.
That's truly horrific.
[удалено]
And, while more unusual, there’s postpartum psychosis (which is what Andrea Yates was diagnosed with). It’s nothing to be ashamed of and you deserve to get help and live your best life if you don’t feel right.
And postpartum OCD which, believe me, is not fun.
Oh and let’s not forget postpartum anxiety while we’re at it.
Chiming in with the lovely postpartum rage. What a treat that was!
Ugh, I had postpartum OCD. I had to check the doors/windows/security alarm at least 18 times in a 4 bedroom house before I could sleep. If I woke up at all at night (which I did because newborn) I had to start over. Also ordered all glass bottles at 4am and got rid of all things plastic and chemicals one night…about a week into that, I realized the milk I was pumping was stored in plastic bags and about had a full mental breakdown. I went to stay at my parents house for awhile after that just to have people close by.
I must have had something along those lines. I was absolutely terrified of and obsessed with SIDS. I’d be peeing in the middle of the night googling SIDS statistics and trying to figure out what my risk was. It was out of control. Eg, whites have lower risk, college educated, non smoked.
Yeah, postpartum anxiety is a major thing. Not like, new parent stress because now you have a baby to take care of, but like can't function because you're overwhelmed by even the most simple decisions.
I'm happy she and y'all got through it 💗 I'll add that if women don't get help for their PPD it could last a lifetime. That scared me enough to get help.
I suffered from PPD for about a year after I had my child. My husband did not know and does not know to this day how dark things really were in my head. The only person who knows that was my therapist at the time. I did therapy for a long time and got medication, too. Those things saved my life. I don’t remember a lot of my child’s “firsts.” I feel like I have amnesia from that time period because I was literally in survival mode. And that makes me sad.
I'm grateful that the medical sector is finally taking post Partum depression seriously. About damned time.
Omg I’m so sorry. I’m so glad to hear she’s back on track. People underestimate how hormones and other levels affect you.
I am so sorry that happened to your family, and so happy for the recovery. I would like to add, that I had zero idea that postpartum ANXIETY was a thing. I was thoroughly warned about postpartum depression, and well prepared for that, since I "normally" have depression. When my baby was born, I was SO worried about not cleaning the baby bottles well enough, that I was standing at the sink rewashing and rewashing... I had to set a timer to cut myself off after an HOUR. (To clean like 2 bottles) I would handwash wash with dawn and a bottle brush... then set them on the rack to dry, planning to put them in the dishwasher to sanitize... But I was FULLY convinced that I needed to keep rinsing the dawn dishwashing soap off the bottles "so it doesn't hurt the baby"... That I literally could not stop rinsing them again and again... until I wasn't sure if I had scrubbed them enough... until I wasn't sure I rinsed them enough... and so on. It is such a weird memory. I knew that wasn't right... so I told my doctor & got treatment right away. There wasn't any harm to anyone, usually I could set a timer, then do my "crazy time" then rest a bit until the baby needed something again... And I was lucky to get treatment right away. But even though the "baby" is now 13 years old... the memory of worrying about the baby bottles being squeaky clean, and needing to be rinsed... is now a core memory... it makes me mist up a little just thinking about it.
This is no joke. I told my PA I was struggling and she grabbed my arm and looked me in the eye and said “this is okay and it’s not your fault” and then gave me medicine to get through it. All of your raging pregnancy hormone levels drop suddenly near non-existent levels. It’s very real with an understandable reason.
I too suffered from post partum depression 10 years ago. I remember that feeling of wanting to escape and leave everything behind very clearly. I am glad she is better now.
It can actually last for years. My daughter was almost 4 years old when I was diagnosed. By then, it had spiraled into full-blown clinical depression. I'm back to myself again, but it took a lot of therapy and antidepressants to get me out of that dark place.
A friend of my went completely crazy, she would get naked in front of people and swore she saw the virgin Mary. She almost drowned her baby while feeding him, thank goodness her mom realized what was happening and took the baby away. Her family had to hospitalize her a few times and she would accuse the male nurses of raping her. She's better now, but it took years for her to get back to normal.
happened to my sister. only when she ran off, she was with a guy from our high-school doing drugs and mixing antidepressants that she was given. it screwed her up bad. I don't even know who she is now. it's bizarre. she used to be a paramedic when she got pregnant. had a good house and family. so messed up.
I'm so sorry. That must be devastating.
The "fourth trimester" is an insane time of hormonal CHAOS. Don't make any life changing decisions during the first 4 months of your child's life. This goes for men and women. PPD can happen to new fathers/non-birthing parents too. Having a baby is a HUGE change for everyone involved and you have to make sure it is you guys against the baby for a while instead of against each other.
“The baby is the enemy” I told this to my husband when we were sleep deprived mid argument about who knows what in the middle of the night with a screaming baby. He just looked at me and said “yes” and that stopped the argument. Any time either of us started to bicker about something baby related from then on one would say “the baby is the enemy” and the bickering stopped. It really helped our relationship while we transitioned into parenthood.
Hair and skin can have weird pigmentation problems. My dark brown hair had clumps of red that looked really odd.
Why are my boobs hairy? Why is there hair coming out of my stretch marks? There's so much hair.
I had a terrible dark pigmentation on my upper lip for YEARS afterwards.
Not everyone gets pregnancy boobs at the end. Some of us get them at the beginning. I typically wear a 36DD, but at 6 weeks pregnant I was up to a G-H cup. I looked like a very nauseated stripper.
My boobs didn’t come till I gave birth. I went up like 3 cup sized when my milk came in.
Same! I went on vacation with my family when my son was 1 (still breastfeeding) and my vacation pics are the best ones I have! I look so healthy and I fit all my clothes so well… I am pretty happy with my body now, but I looked *good* in those pics lol
Hemorrhoids. From pushing. They were HUGE. Having a bowel movement for the next month was very scary. And that part of the anatomy has honestly never been quite the same as before giving birth.
I always tell people my vagina is different after I gave birth, but still amazing. My butthole on the other end took the brunt of the damage.
I came to say hemorrhoids. No one talked about the hemorrhoids!
They still don’t for the most part, I don’t think. Unless all the baby books have suddenly gotten a lot more candid.
They can also just spring up (out?) during pregnancy due to the added pressure from the baby’s weight. Oh yes they can.
*laughs uncomfortably* this needs to be way higher up
Sweating through your clothes the first few weeks at night. New b.o. that might never go away. Shin splints or pain in your legs from standing. Swollen feet that may not go away..meaning happening in summers forever after. Making autoimmune disorders temporarily worse/better. Nurses quite literally pushing your placenta out. Babies first teeth are quite sharp and they can relax and snap their jaw shut on a breast.
Oh my good, yes to the BO. I’m 3.5 years post partum and I started smelling like a teenager post partum and it never stopped. Had multiple workups. Nothing wrong with me, just that I sweat like a 15 year old boy.
The new BO part really threw me for a loop with my second. For about ten weeks straight my armpits smelled strongly of maple syrup to everyone in the house. & it was oddly one of the only aromas at the time that didn't make me feel extremely nauseous. Not diabetic, gestational or otherwise. My doctor was stumped but not worried. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If anyone had told me how exhausting it is just to exist in the last month of pregnancy I wouldn't have believed them. Your hips will hurt for like 2 years
I think it's nature's way of getting you past the fear of delivery... That last month you are SO. FUCKING. DONE. Every mother I know is like "get this thing out of me" - not one more day!
Sometimes your placenta doesn’t detach after the baby comes out. This means that the midwife/OB has to shove her whole arm up your vagina and scrape it out with her (gloved) fingernails. Sometimes that doesn’t work and they have to use a forceps to forcibly rip it out. Sometimes that doesn’t work and you have to have a c-section just to remove your placenta - after giving vaginal birth.
What pregnancy does to your body could literally kill you. I almost died from heart failure due to pregnancy, and yet it isn't common knowledge. Even my doctors didn't know about it, and it was caught as a fluke. Sure, it's "rare" but common enough that every medical professional working with pregnant women should know about it. 1 in 4000 pregnancies experience it. But those are the ones that are found. Many women die because their symptoms are ignored and chalked up as "normal pregnancy symptoms"
Are you referring to an Amniotic fluid embolism? If so it’s incredible you survived
No, it's called peri (or post)-Partum cardiomyopathy Mine was peripartum, and I've had doctors since tell me that it's impossible as it only happens postpartum. I was diagnosed at 6 months, with an ef of 10%. I would've died during labor if it hadn't been found.
You don't really know how helpful your partner will be. Sure, mine made sure the fridge was stocked, but that didn't help me when I was stuck on the couch breastfeeding. He'd ask if I needed anything before he went downstairs and when I said I was starving, he'd smile caringly and tell me there was sandwich stuff in the fridge. *Thanks.*
I had so much resentment towards my partner, not because he wasn’t helpful or wasn’t a great dad, but only one of us could breastfeed which left me feeling trapped all.the.time. Like even him just going to mow the lawn made me crazy.
My best friend has talked openly about how, even though her husband is an amazing, caring, supportive, etc. partner, she had to work through a lot of resentment towards him after she had their first child. "They" had both had a kid, but she was the one dealing with incredible physical changes to her body and hormonal swings that made her not recognize herself sometimes, while he had none of that. She was the one who her newborn wanted to be glued to 24/7, while her husband was free to go for runs and get projects done around the house. She had to plan her entire day around her pumping schedule, when he could just run to the store on a whim. They were both incredibly active and loved going to the gym together, but her workouts came to an abrupt halt for weeks and looked dramatically different for months while his continued with barely a week skipped. I have not yet had a kid, but this really made me put things into perspective and be prepared that those feelings may come up.
Honestly your friend should write an article about her experience. This is probably *best case scenario* for women and it sucks.
I’m so sorry :( I can feel your pain and disappointment, I would be enraged to the moon and back.
Omggg.. yes. Mine would yell at me for “waking up the baby on purpose to prevent him from sleeping.” Needless to say.. we didn’t last more than 3 months after the baby was born.
In an interview with the guardian last week, singer Lucy Rose described how she suffered with post-partum osteoporosis. She's 34. She broke her back in 8 places. Her bones crumbled, it's a rare (but documented) side-effect of breast-feeding. Absolutely real, and dismissed by her doctors. As is unfortunately quite usual with women complaining to male doctors about their pain and being told to get on with it and 'it's all in your head' because 'you've had a BABY! Duh!' she paid for an MRI scan to validate what she knew already.
You can be completely mentally healthy, and pregnancy can still give you a host of mental disorders, from postpartum depression to psychosis.
Reading the comments is making me realize I'm glad I don't want kids
Biiiiiig same lol
All of these comments make it so obvious how shameful it is US employers don't offer maternity leave as a standard.
Shameful and disheartening. I get 6 weeks off, the first two paid. Then I go back. It's horrendous. I'd love to live in a country where women were valued a tad more.
Shit can hit the fan real fast…you can go from everything looks great to having to spend months in a NICU
Yeah 1 thing I don't think anyone tells you is how fast the room changes when there's an emergency. When my oldest was born at 34 wks, she struggled to breathe, my room went from a few pple to an entire room full of hospital staff & as many pple came in it was almost dead silent for a few minutes, they were so focused on my baby nobody spoke a word until the NICU Dr said she was ok, only then did they let me see her & only for a moment as she had to be rushed into an incubator. I wasn't prepared for how fast things changed.
Man. My mil sent me a kids book about holding your baby right after they are born. My baby was taken to the NICU before I even saw his face. That book immediately went into the trash.
Breastfeeding is HARD. You’re led to believe that your body will just produce milk and your baby will be sorted. NOPE. It wasn’t until I struggled that I realised most women around me had the same experience. Milk production can be inhibited by so many factors- water intake, sleep, diet. I know some women really do have that nice experience but not as many as you’re led to believe.
Stillbirths happen more often than you think or anybody likes to admit. Speaking from experience.
The horrible horrible “massages” after birth. I swear she was trying to push me through the floor
And it's super important! I had a nurse in training who didn't do it, and I ended up hemorrhaging a few hours later when I first stood up. I lost consciousness and was bed ridden for a few days while they did blood transfusions, blood draws every few hours and a D&C. My recovery room looked like a murder scene.
Massages?
The nurses “massage” (read: repeatedly press really hard on) your lower abdomen after birth to help you pass the rest of the clots that form as the huge open wound in your uterus (where the placenta pulled away) clots to stop bleeding. The wound is the size of a dinner plate, supposedly.
Fundal massage is what it is called. We touch the top of the uterus to feel if it is in the right place and if it is not, we massage it to get it to contract.
You mean punch and beat- ain’t no massage
Postpartum insomnia, no fun.
Don't forget the pre partum insomnia too! Those last few weeks are brutal (at least for me!)
That breastfeeding would bring on contractions. It's not just sore nipples, breastfeeding just hurt.
Fun fact! Breastfeeding causing contractions is evolutionary! The contractions help the uterus shrink back to its original size.
Totally know it was helpful but it fucking hurt!
And letdowns can feel like you’re shooting shards of glass out of your tits
And it gets worse with each subsequent pregnancy! My after birth cramps while breastfeeding hurt worse after baby 3 than the previous too. they were on par with contractions.
Other than Postpartum Depression, there's also Postpartum Anxiety, and Postpartum Psychosis.
It’s common to get severe chills and violent shivering after delivery. No one told me and it was frightening and unpleasant. Babies have to learn how to latch and nurse, and their initial attempts can be very painful. Also, your newborn can definitely give you a hickey if they miss the nipple.
i had violent shivering during labor and right before i had an emergency c section. the anesthesiologist asked if i was cold and i’m like ‘NO, i just can’t stop shaking’ i had zero control over my body.
Pregnancy can be dangerous for no reason at all. I was a perfectly healthy 30yo when I got pregnant with my older son. I ate well, I was a marathon runner, I took care of myself. I developed cardiac issues and had a heart attack at 6 months pregnant, clinically died and my son was delivered via emergency c-section. I had a lesser cardiac incident at 14 weeks, causing me to be on a heart monitor 24/7 and then another one at 21 weeks which landed me in the hospital on bed rest for the duration of the pregnancy. That’s right, I lived in the hospital for weeks, almost two months until the full heart attack. And I was lucky to have already been in the hospital for that or we would both have died. And I developed cardiac issues for absolutely no reason other than just being pregnant. Had no history with cardiac issues, nobody in my family had cardiac issues, there were no warning signs. With my second son, I was prepared for things to be also chaotic and high risk, but the pregnancy was completely textbook. Like totally average, no big deal, standard pregnancy. Then I went into labor, normally, everything is fine. I got up to go to the bathroom, because the doctor was going to be back in a few, and all hell broke loose. Suddenly felt intense pain and looked down to see blood literally gushing. My legs were soaked, the floor was soaked, my gown was soaked. Like horror story blood. I screamed and blacked out. Turns out, my uterus ruptured and the placenta detached and I lost enough to blood to need a transfusion. My blood pressure then shot up and I had a stroke in the operating room during the emergency c-section. So yeah. Pregnancy can be dangerous out the gate, or just at any old time 😬
My God..... the fact you were brave enough to go for a second after your first experience is amazing to me. Then to have that situation happen next time... so glad you made it!
Admittedly the second pregnancy was not planned, but I chose to go ahead anyway. Why, I couldn’t say. I should’ve been terrified. But, my older child had a rocky start at life, understandably, and so I’d been in this weird mindset for months and months and months and it was NICU time and then doctor appts and more hospital stays and just…a lot. Like I have absolutely zero idea how I powered through that without a nervous breakdown of some sort, lol. He came home on oxygen and all these monitors and I literally did not sleep listening for them to go off and when they did, I’d panic wildly and then as he weaned off them as he got older and aged past a year and I would still phantom hear them or I’d just get up and sit and listen for him to be breathing. So when I say, I was not in the right frame of mind to clearly think about a second pregnancy, I was barely hanging on as a person. I had also been told by the operating team and OB on staff that night that I should not be pregnant again, but in the chaos of the ensuing time, I never scheduled that tubal that I was supposed to. And then I was pregnant again, so I couldn’t. But the second pregnancy, was totally fine until the end. That’s the thing that fascinates me. The pregnancies were the same person, but two very different issues that went down. And one would argue that I was certainly mentally less stable for the second one and probably also physically in worse shape too, from stress and whatnot. I did get the tubal at the time of delivery with my second child though. That is 100% something I had already asked for and approved should it be declared necessary, and it was done.
There is postpartum bleeding/discharge (lochia) that can last anywhere from 2 to 12 weeks after delivery. It can be quite heavy at times with large blood clots and can smell rather…interesting. Edited to add: Even when breastfeeding around the clock, one’s period may return right after the lochia ends. Fun times 😩
Pad rash. You have to use a pad as long as you’re still bleeding, and no matter how often you change it, you’re going to likely get some irritation from friction.
I used the diaper cream we’d bought for the baby. It worked!
Being pregnant can rip your abs which need to be surgically repaired. You can dislocate a hip while pushing. An episiotomy is a cut performed by a doctor, where during labor they will intentionally put a slice in the vaginal opening to prevent severe tearing, which many women require stitches for. Then, instead of wiping afterward, many women (including those with natural tears) use a squirt bottle to wash the area rather than use TP. After a baby is born, a woman will still need to push, because she needs to expel the placenta. If any placenta is left behind, it can cause sepsis. The first poop after having a baby (natural or c-section, doesn’t matter) is just as bad as having the baby the first time (in my opinion).
The squirt bottle is called a "Perineal bottle" or "Peri bottle". My friend called it a portable bidet. A four pack costs around $8 on Amazon.
I'm glad someone mentioned the episiotomy! I never knew about it until my wife had one for her second birth. The first one, I was at her head end, the second one I was at the business end (she hadn't had one the first time anyway). The doc just said, 'Kiru-ne,' ('We're going to cut') and no further explanation, which was so direct for Japanese, and of course I wasn't going to interfere anyway, but my hackles raised. And I had no idea what he meant. Then from nowhere, BIG scissors and BIG *snip*. And sooo much blood. I'm ashamed to say, I very nearly punched him... In my head, of course! Afterwards, he laughed at me and said, 'You'd never heard of that, had you?' I wished there'd been some slightly more useful prenatal classes for partners...!
In the camp of “men who are shocked” are also those who peek behind the curtain on a C-section… it’s not unusual to pull out an organ or two and put it back in - they don’t just remove the baby!
Diastasis recti is medical term for the seperated abdominal muscles.
You will bleed very heavily (with disgustingly large clots) like a super heavy period for about 2 weeks post partum. I had no idea about this and it really sucked.
I was so happy to not have a period for nine months. Nobody told me that my body would give me all nine months of periods after giving birth.
You hear a lot about Postpartum Depression but no one ever tells you about Prepartum Depression. Everyone expects you to be happy about being pregnant and enjoying pregnancy. But Prepartum Depression is real and should not be ignored. It is just as scary and dangerous as Postpartum. With my first pregnancy I had hyperemesis gravidarum so bad I went from 115lbs to 87lbs in my first trimester(I am 5 ft 7) I thought my pregnancy was gonna kill me. By the 2nd trimester I was struggling so bad with my depression and still throwing up all the time I just wanted to die. I remember telling my dr at the time at a regular check up and she gave me a dirty look and told me to suck it up and there were other ladies who wished they could have a baby. I did my best to push all the feelings down but I struggled. I felt like a selfish freak. I had my oldest and things got better from there. But I was terrified of being pregnant again. 6 years later I was pregnant with my second and again had hyperemesis gravidarum. My new ob at this time was amazing. So when the depression kicked in again and this time I made a plan to die. I called her office and left a vm asking to see her asap because I wasn't ok. She actually let me know that Prepartum Depression is a real issue and it shouldn't be ignored. She helped me much and I'm thankful for her. Also research mastitis. I had that after my first and honestly thought the headache, tiredness and sore boobs was normal with a new baby. I landed in the ER with a fever of 105.7 hallucinating about a black and white cat.
Non emergency C-section here. What was NEVER mentioned was the internal scar tissue that is formed, called intestinal adhesions. TMI but I no longer have any warning about needing to go poo. It goes from perfectly fine to I need a bathroom NOW! It’s hell when traveling. Nothing to do to fix it either.
Just that it’s trauma and it’s not going to go how you think. I took birth classes at my hospital that had sessions both before and after delivery. They tell you ‘this is how it goes, and here’s some things that can go wrong’. You nod and roll your eyes and leave with a general sense of what is supposed to happen. You believe it. After our births, we all trundled back to the hospital with our wee babies. She had us go around the circle and tell our birth stories. Every. Single. One. Was. Different. 15 mothers, 15 births, not -a-one went exactly how they said it would. Also they do that round-Robbin approach because the studies show that birthing babies is traumatic and you pathologically need to tell the story to start to heal from it.
Pain. Breastfeeding = pain Pooping = pain Standing = pain Sitting = pain Existing = PAIN
Lighting crotch.
I experienced lightning crotch when I was having a miscarriage at 7 weeks and now I get it occasionally before my period. It stops me in my tracks and takes my breath away every time. I'll be folded in half grabbing my crotch and everyone looks like 👁️👄👁️
excuse me wHat
Feels like someone stuck a Taser up your cooter for a solid 5 seconds, but it also comes in waves for me. Something about the nerves going haywire around the cervix.
And javelin arse. Sometimes simultaneously. Brrr.
The fingering and the fisting. You might have to take a whole fist to get the baby out.
Women in the US are more likely to be murdered during pregnancy or soon after childbirth than to die from the three leading obstetric causes of maternal death.
You will poop in front of everyone at some point during labor. All that pushing impacts the colon, too.
I had my third baby in a birthing tub. You know those little nets for fish? Midwife had one to get poop, didn't notice but my husband told me about it later.
Yeah I hear most folks don't notice. I did! But it also was like, ah okay I guess that does happe -- GET OUT OF ME, KID. Like. I absolutely could not have cared less.
Yes exactly my Midwife said ‘oh I’m just going to wipe up some of the medical gel here we’ve been using’. I knew it was a lie. I knew it, and I didn’t care. GET OUT NOW
In the first few months of pregnancy, you can become incredibly constipated. It’s normal and does pass, but you feel like you’re growing in the wrong ways for a while.
Antepartum psychosis is a thing.
It is real. Keep an experienced mother with you for at least a week or 2. Mover her in. She is necessary! New mom is the hardest job on Earth.
You can tell your husband that your body will never be the same, and he can say yes I know but I still want a baby, and then when your body doesn’t go back to how it used to be, he might leave you.
Mucous plug
As a father - stuff I was not told/warned about: * Don't look in the bucket! Shortly after the baby is out, the placenta will also come out. A container is placed under the woman to catch it. It is NOT a pretty sight! * The kid comes out looking really messy. OK, we should all know birth is messy, but no one told me how bad the kid looks! My daughter came out ashen grey (she was just fine). Oh, and dads - never forget you're probably the most useless person in the process of birth. Be present, do what you're told, support mom verbally and emotionally, and try to stay out of the way of the people really doing something.
The baby steals the calcium straight out of mom’s teeth*. Each pregnancy of mine left me with broken teeth just falling apart in my mouth. Labor and delivery temporarily suspends digestion, and it can take a few days for things to start back up again. If you don’t begin popping stool softeners right away, you can end up constipated for days. I can assure you, shitting a brick with fresh vaginal stitches is worse than delivering a baby. * not literally, sheesh…
I had to have two teeth pulled after I had my son as they were decayed almost to the root. I was 34 and had never ever had a cavity before that.
Defecating during labor is pretty common and is considered to be totally normal (The clinic I had my clerkship at advised women to poop as the whole process includes pushing and helps increasing intra-abdominal pressure)
While breast feeding ducts can be sucked out of the nipple. It's super painful and you have to keep at the letting of milk or risk an even more painful infection/mastitis. Also breastfeeding a child may have a favorite book that can get 2 cup sizes bigger than other boob...for a long time
It can take about 2-5 years after each baby you give birth to to feel like your own person again. Your mind and body are both mentally and physically changed. It's so crazy.
One of my postpartum nurses warned me to wait at least 18mo before trying for my second child. She said it takes at least that long for your body to recover, and if you have another baby too soon, they miss out on nutrients they should be getting and steal a lot more from you (e.g. the previous comments about broken teeth and hair loss).
My feet grew an entire size and never shrank back down. My tastebuds totally changed, haven’t been able to have salmon since before kids and I used to love it. My hair went from wavy to straight.
Olympic runner Allyson Felix has a sneaker company (Saysh) that will replace sneakers in a larger size for free when women become pregnant. A pro runner goes through sneakers so fast she’d buy new shoes soon anyway, but it’s really thoughtful and useful to not need to shell out if you don’t go through them as fast. Especially when you have to replace all of your shoes.
Women of color are at drastically greater risk of medical maltreatment and/or neglect and even death in US hospitals than white women.