This post is part of My VBAC Journey series. You can read the story of my c-section here. If you had an unexpected cesarean section, you may be overwhelmed and emotional when you come home, hopefully these tips for a healthy cesarean section recovery will be of use to you as you navigate this path into motherhood.
Tips for a Healthy Cesarean Section Recovery
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1. Rest.
Yes, this may sound very obvious, but besides being tired from getting up at night with your newborn, and fatigue from blood loss, your body is trying to produce milk and heal muscle and tissue that was cut open during your surgery. A healthy cesarean section recovery depends upon as much rest as possible during the first few weeks after birth.
2. Help.
If you don’t have help, rest can seem impossible. If your husband is able to take time off work, have him do almost everything. Daily help for the first two weeks is ideal as this gives you time to establish a good breastfeeding relationship, and will keep you off your feet. Doing too much after a cesarean section can irritate your incision, and in some cases cause it to reopen, which you want to avoid at all costs.
Where can you find help? Your mother and other family, women from your church, friends, neighbors, a postpartum doula.
If no one offers, ask! Explain that you have just had a major abdominal surgery and that you should be off your feet as much as possible.
Most churches will start meal trains for new moms. A meal every night for a couple of weeks is a great blessing if you have people willing to do it. Sometimes there is even enough food to freeze for later meals.
When guests come over and ask if you need anything give them something to do. Have them fold your laundry, wash the dishes, or hold the baby so you can shower and nap. Your priority right now is your newborn and yourself, so don’t be afraid to hand out jobs when people ask.
3. Take your pain meds.
Just do it. This isn’t time to be super woman. A c-section is a major surgery and the doctor will send you home with pain medications because you will need them. So take them! However, make sure that you aren’t overdoing it just because you aren’t feeling much pain during the first couple of weeks after your cesarean.
4. See a lactation consultant.
One thing I was surprised about after my c-section was the difficulty Seth and I had forming a breastfeeding relationship. The lactation consultant in my hospital encouraged me, gave me new positions to try, helped me to know if Seth was latching properly, and was awesome overall. The position ideas were very helpful because a cradle hold has baby lying across you stomach and you probably won’t want anything near your incision for a couple of days. Check out these other nursing positions.
5. Give yourself time to bond.
I’m not sure if it was part of the c-section or from feeling like I didn’t really give birth to him, but I had a harder time than I thought I would bonding with Seth. Love was there, but I didn’t feel like he was mine. Be aware that this may happen to you, so relax and give yourself time. It may take a couple of weeks or longer (I have heard of people saying it took them a couple of months, for myself it was probably a week or so.), but it WILL come. You are not a bad mother if you don’t fall head over heels in love with your newborn instantly.
6. Grieve.
If your cesarean section was not planned, and even if it was, allow yourself to grieve if needed. Yes, a healthy baby and momma are important, but it is okay to grieve the birth that you though you would have. For myself, I didn’t mourn the loss of the natural (vaginal, pain-med free) birth that I had planned until a couple of months after Seth was born. Even then I felt bad because I had a healthy baby in my arms. It wasn’t until I wrote out everything that I was feeling and acknowledged what I was feeling that I was able to start moving forward. It perfectly normal to mourn the loss of your dream. An ICAN group can be a big help. I never attended a meeting in my area, but just connecting with other women on Facebook who knew what I was going through was a huge encouragement.
7. Supplements that may help:
Protein. Protein is needed to help form collagen and elastin. These are the base of new tissue. Protein also helps with inflammation in the healing process. Sources of protein include: meat, eggs, fish, nuts, oatmeal, quinoa and dairy products. Oatmeal and quinoa also may help your milk supply, so you get a bonus with those. 🙂
Vitamin C. Vitamin C also helps to build collagen. Collagen is a protein used to make skin, cartilage, tendons, ligaments and blood vessels. It will also boost your immune system function and helps your body to absorb Iron.
Iron. In a vaginal delivery the average blood loss is 500ml (half a quart) and for a c-section the average is 1000ml (1 quart). That doesn’t sound like a lot of blood since the average pregnant woman has 10 quarts of blood, but there is also a higher risk of postpartum hemorrhage after a cesarean section. Iron is needed to help your body make hemoglobin. Hemoglobin helps your red blood cells to function properly. Pregnant women already have a higher chance of being anemic, add to that blood loss during delivery and possible hemorrhage and there is a big need for iron after birth. Symptoms of low iron are: fatigue (who wants more of that?), dizziness, headache, cold hands and feet and cravings for ice, dirt or starch. Before you start eating any of those, I suggest Floradix. Floradix is a wonderful iron supplement made of plants and herbs, it is in a liquid form for faster assimilation into the blood stream.
{Side story here: after I had Cameron, my VBAC baby, I hemorrhaged. When I left the hospital my hemoglobin was a 6.6 (for women the low on the average is 12.0). I got Floradix about two weeks after I went home and took it every day until my six-week check up. They drew blood to test my level at that appointment and in four weeks my level had gone back up to 12.2. I think it is a miracle worker. 🙂 }
I hope that by using these tips for a healthy cesarean section recovery, you are able to heal quickly and enjoy this new season of life with your little one in your arms!
Want more tips like these, plus natural remedies for common postpartum ailments?
Check out The First Six Weeks: Thriving Naturally on Your Postpartum Journey. Written by a certified birth doula who often sees women preparing themselves for labor but not the transition into motherhood that comes in the first weeks and months after bringing baby home, you will find encouragement and community in it’s pages. You’ll also have access to special discount codes on exercise and fitness routines created specifically for postpartum women, a special Facebook community, and a printable journal/planner to help you remember those special moments and focus on what is important in the first weeks: healing and bonding.
You May Also Like:
How to Naturally Boost Your Breastmilk Supply
6 Ways to Nurture Your Marriage After Baby
Andrew’s Birth Story {Successful 2VBAC}
Those are really great tips. I have a friend who must deliver via C-section. I will remember to remind her of these things.
I hope it goes well for her! 🙂
I am sure that many will appreciate your experience and advice. The way you outlined the steps of dealing with a C-section are easy to follow.
Thanks. I really hope this will help someone.
Great information, thanks for sharing your journey. I am sure others will reach out to you.
Great tips. I never thought about all the various things a woman’s body is trying to do after birth and add to that healing from surgery and it’s really tough! I had to have an unplanned Csection as well and it took me a long time to finish mourning it. I had wanted a natural birth so bad! But my boy was in danger and so I am now grateful to live in a time when the capability to save him existed.
I am glad that there are options for us now when we need them. C-sections have saved many lives over the years, momma’s and babies.
This is much-needed! I’ve never seen anything about recovering from a C-section – and they’re so common now! Thanks for this!
Thanks Kristen! I want others to know that the grief and lack of bonding can be normal, they will be okay.
These are excellent tips! I experienced post-partum hemorrhaging after an emergency c-section. Although I had a healthy baby, the recovery process for me was a tough one. I really would like another child, and I hope I am able to have a VBAC for the next one.
I’ll be rooting for you if you attempt a VBAC, they are very healing.
PP hemorrhage… 🙁 they suck!
This is great! I will be sharing with my friend who just had an emergency c-section yesterday!
I hope these can help her. I’m sure she is probably feeling a little overwhelmed right now, and glad that she has friends around her.
This is such an important issue and I’m so glad that you mentioned time to grieve. I pinned this to my “parenting” Pinterest board.
Thanks for coming by, Bonnie! I need to make a Pin picture for this series, the ones I’ve tried haven’t worked so far.. 🙁
I was able to have all mine natural and so thankful, but some always have theirs c-section and prefer to do it that way! I just had a friend who had to have her 1st c-section with her 4th kid, and said it was easier that natural! So you never know! Great tips though because the body has to heal and momma needs to take care of herself if she is going to be able to take care of her baby.
I know people who have chosen to have sections as well, although where I live doctors are beginning to deny requests for them unless there is an actual medical reason for the surgery.
I think that would be the wise thing to do.
These are great tips. I will not be needing them, but I will keep them in mind for anyone I know.
~Lorelai
Life With Lorelai
Thanks! I hope that these tips will be an encouragement to some.
Great info. My daughter had an unplanned C-section and the hospital was amazing with supportive info, but not a lot of info on supplements, would be great if they had tips like this in the hospitals too. My grandson was born healthy and beautiful with his adorable ‘froggy legs for a few weeks (he was breach).
My son was breech as well, he must have turned not to long before birth though, ’cause he didn’t keep his froggy legs for long.
This was good information. I had vaginal births. I learned a lot from your post. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Jill.I’m hoping my experiences can help others who are going through a similar situation.
My youngest sister was quite shocked when she knew that she had to do Cesarean Section after waiting for 12 hours for labor her third baby. She had the first and second babies born normally. Now she is on her 8th month pregnancy. I will inform her about this. Thank you for sharing.
I’m glad your sister is doing well, will she be having another section?
Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing on Family Friday Link Up Party!
Awesome list! I totally agree with all of these. Although I hope to never have a C-section again, if I do I’ll definitely be more prepared this time around.
Many doctors will allow skin to skin on the OR table now and many other things that we used to think could only be done after a vaginal birth. I hope you are able to have a VBAC! 🙂
I really appreciate that you mention it’s ok to grieve the birth you thought you would have. I’ve not had a Cesarean, but it was always a fear. Too many women are expected to just be happy with a healthy baby, and a relatively healthy body. I totally agree that it’s OK to be disappointed by missing out on what you thought would happen.
The “healthy momma, healthy baby” saying has always made me a little upset. The funny thing about it though was how hard I tried to tell myself that and to just accept Seth’s birth. I couldn’t really process it and start bonding with him until after I went through a grieving process.
It is TOTALLY NORMAL to grieve the birth you didn’t get, whether it is by a medical intervention that you chose, or something that was needed.
Thanks for coming by Lindsay, I hope you come back soon!
So many good and practical tips. I like the part about giving yourself time to grieve. Having a C-Section when you weren’t planning on it can be really hard but I think sometimes we moms need permission to be sad about things that didn’t go our way 🙂
Definitely! There is also a thing about telling mommas to just be grateful that there is a healthy baby and healthy mom, which is true to a point, but we shouldn’t shame women for mourning the birth that they didn’t get.