Hello mums,
I wanted to open a new thread to provide support to new mums who have suffered from gaping of their episiotomy. I had my first baby in October 2019 and had a few complications and I struggled to find information AND REASSURANCE on the topic so I wanted to share what happened to me and hopefully help someone who will find themselves in the same situation.
For background I had ventouse and forceps delivery with episiotomy.
I gave birth on the 30/10/19 and was discharged from hospital with antibiotics to take to be on the safe side. I was in a lot of pain but that was normal after what my body had been through.
3 days after being discharged from hospital I was seen by a midwife and sent back to the delivery suite as my stitches had broken down in 2 places. Gaping at each end of the wound, at the entrance of my vagina (about 5 mm wide I think) and at the other end (about 1x2 cm). They looked at it and told me I had to be put on an IV of antibiotics for 24h, which meant I had to be readmitted into the ward I had left a few days before. It was a very dark time for me, I cried a lot as you can imagine as I didn't want to go back! I was then given oral antibiotics to take home and they told me it would heal on its own, that they wouldn't restitch.
When I showered and dared to slightly touch down there (I still hadn't looked since birth) I could feel a hole and a bit of flappy skin which was a bit scary. I was also loosing some green discharge which looked a bit suspicious but I felt better for a while until around my 6 weeks GP check when I was still feeling some degree of pain and eventually so much pain that woke me up at night and made me cry during the day so my GP eventually sent me back to the gynae assessment unit where I gave birth.
I was seen on 18 December, when they confirmed I still had an infection and it wouldn't heal until that was cleared and I was put on another course of oral antibiotics (co amoxiclav, before that I was taking cefalexin and metronidazole prescribe by my GP).
They took blood test and swab to ensure I was on the right antibiotics. And told me I will get there. Which meant nothing for me as I didn't know when I would heal and they couldn't tell me. But I started looking at the wound to be able to assess myself if it was getting better or not. there were no more holes luckily but some red bloody/fleshy skin instead which I later discovered is called granulation tissue but it seemed mine didn't want to heal properly and was overgranulating.
On the 24th of December my prescription of antibiotics was renewed for 7 days as I still had signs of green discharge but was feeling much better by the 26th. Almost pain free which was encouraging.
Then I had another course of co amoxiclav for 7 days so 3 weeks in total and another swab taken as if I didn't have pain from the episiotomy anymore, but the non healing skin was still painful and I still had a bit of green/yellow discharge.
From 9th of January I was on ciprofloxacin 500mg for 7 days. Seemed to be improving but still yellowish green discharge down there.
On 16th of January another swab taken. I carried on with ciprofloxacin for 7 days and I had silver nitrate applied on the granulation tissue which had formed. That procedure done by the GP didn't hurt at all and was very quick.
On Friday 24th of January 2020, the swab test was negative, which meant no more infections finally! And I had another round of silver nitrate applied which helped stopping the yellow discharge that it appeared the granulation tissue was producing.
Next follow up appointment was 3rd of February with more silver nitrate applied.
18/02 more silver nitrate applied. After a few days it seems the wound was finally getting smaller!
Next appointment was then on 5th of March, the biggest gap (1x2cm) I had was surprisingly totally healed and just looked like a scar. And more silver nitrate was applied on the last tiny bit of flesh which still looked a bit raw at the entrance of my vagina.
2 weeks later I could finally said I was completely pain and at last stress free!
It took overall 3.5 months to feel like my new normal and I had sex around the 4 months mark with no pain near the episiotomy where I thought this would be likely to hurt a lot. I just felt a bit of discomfort inside but that quickly passed.
My little girl is almost 5 months old and when I was reading posts about people who had healed and were saying they had forgotten about it all already around that time I couldn't believe them. I was in such pain and fear that I would never heal and even cried so much there were times I regretted having a baby.
BUT 5 months later, I am me again and my little girl is just fabulous! I am back to having sex, I enjoy my walks again, I can sit on the toilet without being afraid of pain, I can squat and jump and run if I want and I am back to doing yoga. So it does get better, and when it is all over, you will forget about it and not care so much about this whole experience.
My advice if you are going through this is for you to find the right healthcare support or GP who will support you and be understanding, the first GP I saw wasn't just right for me and I ended up seeing someone else in the same surgery.
I had also received a lot of different advice about how to wash down there, I must say when my infection was at its worse and I couldn't look down there, shallow bath with a few drops a lavender and tea tree oil did clean it up but apart from a few days of doing that, water from the shower was enough indeed. What seemed to work really well towards the end and what maybe I should have done before was to air dry my bits for longer after my showers, just opening the legs a bit and letting it breathe! But time was not on my side back then with a little one.
I wish you all the best mums and keep faith , keep faith, keep faith, YOU WILL HEAL!!!!!!!!
Love, Cece