C-Section Recovery

[Seamummy89]

Hi all,

I am due to have my fourth child in April. This will be by elective csection due to previous birth trauma.
I will have three other children at home 6,8 and 3 years old. My husband will be off work for one week, and I have help for the school runs for the second week.
Week three I will be on my own. Does anyone have advice or experience of this situation? I have to drive to the school which is in the next town to where we live.
Many thanks :-) x

I had a very traumatic birth so had an ELCS following that so completely understand your rational! I found recovery from a section much easier than the SD/forceps/episiotomy/PPH of my first birth and it was a lovely calm and controlled experience. Personally I walked around ikea on day 4 and was cleared by my GP to drive on day 10 (I also phoned my insurance and they were happy as long as I could do an emergency stop comfortably). I took paracetamol and ibuprofen for a week. The only things I found painful was sneezing and laughing too hard! I understand I was lucky very straight forward surgery, minimal blood loss and no infection. I would recommend getting up as soon as able after the section and then little and often drink tonnes to get everything flushed through your system. Take your pain killers regularly and try to stand tall. Wear massive pants and leggings so nothing is rubbing on your wound and have one of those microwave hottie things. Good luck I hope you have the positive experience I had!

There’s no way I could have pressed hard enough on the brake pedal of a car to do an effective emergency stop until 5 or 6 weeks after c-section.
The incision is through a lot of the muscles in your core, so it’s unlikely they’ll knit together adequately for you to be safely driving 2 weeks after surgery, even if you feel OK in yourself. Obviously some people are fine, but I don’t think you can rely on it.

Thank you everyone for your advice x

See if you can get help for doing the school runs - I had a section and could probably have driven after a couple of weeks however I had the fear of god put into me about what would happen if there was an accident - just think where a seat belt is and what happens with the safety measures in even a small bump

I've had 2 sections, minimal pain or discomfort and was driving by week 3 after both.
I found the biggest issue was lifting the car seat in and out and getting the pram out of the boot. You're not supposed to lift anything heavier than your baby so bending and lifting to get baby in and out of the car is really tricky.