Anyone experience of infected stitches and episiotomy not healing properly?

[Charlie111]

I had my gorgeous baby 12 days ago and appear to have infected stitches from my episiotomy and also the wound isn't healing properly.

My midwife has also gone AWOL - promising to call me with next steps and then disappearing today and not answering my calls.

I'm a bit worried - anyone with similar experience or advice to share? I already had one course of antibiotics and they don't appear to have worked.

Help!

congratulations on your baby! but sorry you are having a horrid time of it. i have infected and open second degree tear and urethral tear, so can sympathise. forget the mw, get yourself to your gp tomorrow and get him/her to send a swab off so they can make sure you are being treated with the right antibiotic. in particular they need to test for anaerobic bacteria. you may well need more than 1 course to get it cleared up - so don't worry that it's unusual if you do. i'd recommend having a regular look with a mirror so you can keep a watch on how thing look and whether things worsen. if it does go straight back to gp. keep an eye out for thrush - can happen with strong antibiotics. i got a gynae referral - if it doesn't clear up and/or things still don't heal think about asking for one. keep things clean - i'm using plain lukewarm water. you could cover the area with a fresh maternity towel when you do a poo just to make sure nothing gets in there. drink plenty of water so your wee isn't too concentrated and stings.

good luck an get better soon! XX

i agree with cardomom
and have a look at this
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/childbirth/1060945-episiotomy-recovery
and feel free to ask any questions.
make sure you eat well and give it time. your body has had a battering and needs a while to heal properly- it will get better!

btw mine came undone and i didn't have a restitch and it's healed well (took 8 weeks)

hi there, the two best things i would advise are salt water baths at least daily (the iodine in the salt promotes healing) and airing the wound. sit with out any undies, on an old towel if you're still bleeding, and let air get to it (just think how much quicker a cut on your finger heals when you expose it compared to when you have a plaster on it keeping it moist=bad).

but yes, you need to have antibiotics and make sure you're on the right ones, which only a swab test can tell.

hope you heal well soon. make sure you give yourself time and plenty of rest.

thanks everyone - great advice! I went to the GP and they've sent off the swab and I chased the midwives like mad and got to go t the clinic at the hospital. Feeing much better now and apparently it's starting to heal a little - fingers crossed!

To anyone else with a similar problem, def go to your GP - made all the difference! Also I have been advised to take 2 baths a day with tea tree oil in them, natural antibacterial agent.

Thanks all.

Agree with the others, keep things immaculately clean. Shower after every bowel movement and use a cool hairdryer to dry the wound. When you are on your own, wear a dressing gown with no pants so the wound is exposed to the air as much as possible.

if you use a haidryer after loo-which is very good advice- maybe buy a new one if yours is old as there may be hair and bacteria trapped in it which is not good for infection. I bought a new one.

I cant believe you werent advised to use some sort of cleansing bath to start with!! All my mws from day one told me to do tea tree baths, which i did for weeks until i tried the salt baths and saw the difference (the salt is antibacterial as well as promoting healing)

hope yr healing well.

Possibly a daft question, but how much salt should you put in the bath?

ok, this is what my reflexologist advised and what i did:

buy some sea salt, put generous handful in the bath, and fill the bath to just a few inches high. its a sitz bath you want, she told me this is not a relaxing bath! then (sorry if this is tmi) open your legs and 'sloosh' the water into the wound with your hand. if you lie in the bath normally, your legs are actually closed and the salt doesn't get to the wound. i did this for 5-10 minutes as many times a day i could (usually 1-3).

i was examining the wound daily so had a fairly good grasp of how it was healing. and after a few days i could see the wound was healing quicker when i did this.

just to be clear, its still going to take weeks/months to heal. but i did notice a difference in the rate of healing.

also other caveats in what i'm saying are that in the medical literature as i understand it there is no conclusive evidence that salt baths work. i'm just describing my experience. and my reflexologist suggested salt baths to me after speaking to a mw and a senior mw on my behalf.

also, some people find salt baths sting (which is why i didn't do them in the first few weeks as i had heard this). for me it was fine so i carried on, but i did find if i didn't wash off the salt after the bath then it did sting, so i guess you can control this by adjusting the level of salt, or how long you're in the bath.

the other thing to emphasise is airing the wound. this was the thing that made the biggest difference. i didn't wear undies or bottoms in the house for about 3 months lucky it was summer when i had ds but i guess you could just put the heating on!

hope this helps. x

oh wow that's a long post, sorry! just wanted to make sure i explained things properly...

thank you so much! xx