Post partum experience…

[CurlewKate]

If your only point of information was Mumsnet, you would assume that the post partum period is universally appalling-loads of pain, loads of tears, “leaking bodily fluids” complete exhaustion, not able to do anything, unable to shower or do your hair or eat- just dreadful. Is that actually how most women feel? Obviously some women do have a truly dreadful time, but is it really that bad for most of us?

well it wasnt unbearable but it wasnt a fun maybe 2-3 weeks. was a lot better after that but I did have a very involved partner and parents which makes a difference.

Well, definitely for the first couple of weeks I was bleeding, waking up soaked in stale milk, sleeping on a towel because of night sweats, and crying randomly.

I showered every day and found plenty of time to eat though. I did have a good sleeper so that made it easier.

Not for me. I had a terrible pregnancy with dc1.....HG. As soon as dc was born the sickness disappeared and I felt great. I had a bad 2nd degree tear and was getting to grips with breastfeeding but had a houseful of visitors the day after getting home.
We took dc to church when she was 3 days old and then went to my mums 20 miles away for a family lunch!

That’s just because the people experiencing that are more likely to post about it. Just like how if you looked at the relationship board you’d assume everyone was in a hellish relationship. And the pregnancy board probably has more people with difficult pregnancies.

My first was an emergency c section. I was in Tesco with baby the day I got out of hospital doing my food shop. Completely bounced back and it was a great experience. With DC2 I had forceps and an episiotomy. My granny died 2 days later. I took a really bad infection and was in so much pain. I think I was close to having sepsis as my skin all turned yellow. It was really difficult. DC3 was another episiotomy that got infected but nowhere near as bad, pain for a few days but I managed ok. All completely different experiences but DC1 was definitely easiest even though it was a c section. I’m not sure if it was because I was younger that I recovered better.

That's definitely how I felt! I was in pain from my episiotomy and had bad back pain. I was leaking milk, sweat and blood. I was exhausted as my baby wouldn't be put down and I found breastfeeding really difficult to start with. I was also really emotional, anxious and tearful.

People used to say when I had a newborn that that this is the easy bit and just you wait till they're weaning/crawling/walking, but for me the newborn bit but was by far the hardest.

But it will never be a universal experience. Some people will have an easy birth, a baby that sleeps all the time and lots of support. Or they might just be naturally suited to the newborn stage and then find another stage of parenting challenging.

Obviously you don't want to scare mums to be, but actually I was glad that someone had told me about how they they leaked everywhere and smelt weird after birth, as I didn't feel quite so disgusting when it happened to me!

It was twins and my local hospital / maternity services are lame so it was probably never going to be a walk in the park. A singleton and better maternity care would probably have mitigated some of it

It wasn’t for me - back to normal life immediately and feeling fine, just moving a bit more carefully after emergency c sections.

I think it depends on the baby. I was lucky that all my 4 including twins were very easy no velcro babies when born after each feed they would go in their moses basket until the next feed and a little later happy to go in a baby bouncer or baby mat. I had 3 c sections and recovered well.

Well people tend to post about the problems they’re having rather than when everything’s fine, so posts are obviously going to be massively skewed towards the negative. So no, it’s not that bad for most women.

It was quite bad for me, both times, and I posted about some of the issues here, at the time. But I had difficult births ending in c sections, babies in SCBU and issues with establishing breastfeeding.