How long after a c section did you not look pregnant anymore???

[didsnbump]

I had a emergency c section 2 weeks ago tomorrow, and although im healing really well and feeling really good, i still look pregnant!

I did gain quite abit of weight in pregnancy but dint expect to still look so pregnant!

What are other people experiences????

at 2 weeks post my cs i still had fluid retention around my scar. fitted in old jeans after about 6 weeks, but with a lovely roll of flab over it.

as to original question, got asked if i was pregnant even pre pregnancy. . shall be using cs as an excuse for the rest of my days.

I asked my consultant this and she said 6 months post section to properly settle down. I look worse post 2nd section than I did from my first.

fizz - i meant that c-section rather than vaginal births are not nesc why our tummies get bigger - most pregs do that - some of my mates who had vaginal births have enormous tummies a fair while later

But mine went back to flat after vaginal birth, c section played hell with it

I got back to a size eight with exercise/healthy eating/breastfeeding DS and my stomach still had that bloody overhang, but I did have a classic section (down not across) and the way it is stitched is strange, it kind of dips in half way through the scar as if it's sticthed too something.

since reading this thread and reading about whomovedmychocolate's stitch-up I've been researching diastasis repair, it seems it's a plastic surgery job! Anyone know anything about it? I'm probably having a c-section in May and I have a channel down my stomach that is no about 3in wide, they didn't fuse back after DS. Can't stand the thought of looking permanently pg.

What's diastasis repair???

Diastasis is when the stomach muscles separate and I think a repair is when they are stitched back together

Rochwen - I wish it was a total myth but it affects a huge percentage of women who have CSs. It really depends on the way you are stitched up.
Even though I now weigh a stone less than when I conceived dd, I still have a big 'folded over bit' after my em cs that will not budge. (22 months and counting).
Whomovedmychoc - get back on here with tales of stitching that will give me a washboard stomach!!

It is defifnitely NOT A MYTH. I am sitting here looking at it! Twas not there before dd Never ever ever!

i think i got lucky with my surgeons then praise the lord - my scars go across the bikini line and you can't see it through the undergrowth

I didn't like the way my scar tucked in after ds1 so I asked my OB if she could do anything about it. After ds2 was born she peeked over the drape and said "I'm not making any promises but I did a little plastic surgery for you." It does look much better this time. THere's still a teensy bit of drawing in and I had an aquaintance who is a surgeon tell me that it could be fixed by micro-liposuction if I ever wanted to.

Maybe when the dcs are out of college...

Okay the stitching thing. Well my surgeon is Victoria at the John Radcliffe in Oxford - she does private work at the private hospital there too.

First of all, the incision is really low - over my pubic bone. TBH it's far lower than I realised when they did it - the entry point to my uterus is therefore much lower down, in the more meshy bits which stretch two ways (whereas the muscles a the top of the uterus stretch in horizontal bands I believe which increases the risk of rupture and also uneven healing).

Second, they do two layer stitching which should be par for the course but isn't always apparently. If you have stitching in two layers it halves your chance of rupture.

Because the cut is so low, it goes under the majority of the stomach muscles and so they are not compromised, but then the central line of the scar obviously goes through some muscles so I was told they cut and draw them together (I'm not a surgeon, I do cross-stitch now and then but my kitttens look like penguins so I'm not the best person to explain this )

When the surgery is done, all you can see from the outside are two pearls and a bit of string. The two pearls are on either end of the scar - attached to the string which holds the stitches in place. After two days they come along, cut off the pearls and pull (and it hurts a lot) but the internal stitches remain - as far as I know they dissolve!

But I think a large amount has to do with anatomy. Despite looking like a whale when pregnant I normally have a very thin waist and an hourglass figure, so perhaps I'm genetically lucky and my waist would have recovered.

I know that for the first few weeks everything felt 'tight' and then just felt normal. I couldn't for example cough without feeling my stomach muscles getting tighter - which was an odd sensation because the skin was a bit jelly like - yet everything underneath seemed rigid.

Anyway, I don't know if that helped at all?

I'm having a VBAC if I can this time - I think additional surgery is daft if it can be avoided. The sooner I have my baby naturally the sooner I can get back on the treadmill and get my body back to normal!

hmm I'm now really confused - I had an emergency CS in the US 16 weeks ago.

My scar is er nowhere near my stomach muscles - put it this way I will have no problem wearing the briefest of bikini briefs without a scar showing. At the risk of sounding odd where are other people's?

I was also lucky enough to find that I actually weighed five pounds less post birth then I did when I got pregnant. This suggests to me (as I was a horribly unfit individual) that its surely to do with your body and not the method of birth? Certainly my abdomen is now in better shape (thanks to the odd gym visit) then it ever was during the last 15 years.