Does your body know you've given birth after c-section?

[Dragonfruity]

When you have a planned c-section, does your body know you've given birth and release the same hormones as if you've had a vaginal birth? And subsequently do your body and mind go through the same processes eg. bonding feelings, milk production etc? Do these processes take longer after c-section?

What does that do?

Bonding fine. But milk didn’t come until day 5. But they were 37 +1 and it was twins. I was 43 and exhausted, not helped by 2 bouts of nil by mouth (C-section on the planned day didn’t happen so l had to come back the following day) and little sleep for the last few days

I will start by saying I haven't had a c section, I've had 2 vaginal births. One induced and one spontaneous. Induced birth resulted in a colicky, refluxy, angry baby and spontaneous resulted in the calmest, sweetest baby. I immediately bonded with my angry reflux child but 15 weeks on I'm struggling to bond with my sweet baby.

On paper it should be the other way round, and it's really messing with my head.

I think what I'm trying to say is, don't get caught up in what you think should or might happen and just go with the flow and take it in your stride as what will be will be.

Also, bf first time round took days for my milk to come in, really painful for 6 weeks but ultimately very rewarding and I ebf for 14 months. Second time round was a doddle, body knew exactly what to do because it had done it before.

I think that it's the idea that the bacteria in your vag on the way out helps strengthen their immune system.

Vaginal birth also helps squeeze all the fluid out of them. Unless they shoot out in 8 mins like my second, then they spend the next 24 hours coughing it all up!!

@littleredcaravan
🤣🤣🤣

Because I think it’s something that will have evolved over thousands of years of giving birth and I suspect it will have gut benefits that we just don’t know about yet. The research into gut biomes is absolutely fascinating.

Honestly. Mind boggled😂

I did have a google and there is no real scientific research or evidence that it does anything beneficial. And it could even cause infection.

Ffs just feed the baby, do skin to skin and keep them clean and warm.

No need to wipe the contents of your fanny on them.

No not at all, I'm very interested in this actually haha, but need to do more research

Yep, really do your research into this. It’s usually banned in hospitals for good reason. I don’t want to go into details out of respect but if you look into this and some patients who have done it surreptitiously (given it’s against protocol of hospitals they were in), and pretty tragic outcomes. I’d really look into this one very thoroughly.

I had an emergency CS with child number 3.
Bonding no issues. Nurseing took longer than the first two children. We did formula as a supplement the first four days and was 100% breastfeed after that.

No, unless you've naturally gone into labour first. An induction isn't great either, as intervention leads to more interventions but still better outcomes for mother and baby than a C section. Unfortunately sometimes you don't get to choose so you just have to weigh up the risks and take the medical advice at the time

I can only speak from my own personal experience but I had a planned section and didn't have any issues with bonding with my baby.

It was a very positive experience for me and I still got skin to skin as soon as the cord had been cut (by my partner).

The only downside for me was the delay in my milk coming in! It definitely felt like it took a while for my body to catch up as I hadn't gone into labour. In hindsight, I should have tried harvesting some colostrum in the weeks leading up to it but I didn't even know this was a thing at the time. I'll definitely look to do that with this baby.

You also bleed - quite a lot - after a section, which I wasn't fully prepared for. I had nothing for about 2 weeks then it all came out together, I thought I was hemorrhaging I kid you not! I don't know whether that's the same for a vaginal birth or if that's more of a steady loss each day but this was just one huge event 2 weeks later (sorry Iif TMI)

The statistics lump emergency and planned sectioans together. I thought that the data showed a planned section was actually very slightly safer for baby (but not quite as safe for mum).

In any event my body knew I'd had a baby and they're were no issues. If what you were saying was true they'd be more milk delays with planned sections then emergency ones where the woman is usually in labour. That's not the case. It's the placenta removal which kicks things off apparently in any event.

An induction isn't great either, as intervention leads to more interventions but still better outcomes for mother and baby than a C section.

This is false.

Dc1 vaginal birth, no problem bonding, milk came on day 3, lots of latch issues, child has multiple allergies, eczema and asthma
Dc2 planned section, bonded from minute one and latched on immediately, milk came the morning after, no health issues

I had 3 VB's followed by 2 c-sections. Bonding was the same with all 5. My 2 c-section babies were both in nicu which felt like they had taken one of my major organs and put it in the other side of the maternity department. Breastfeeding was fine with dc5. Dc4 couldn't breastfeed due to an unrelated medical problem but I pumped milk for him and that worked out fine. The main thing that was different was that with my VB's I suddenly lost about 20-30lb straight after the baby came out, which makes sense. With my c-sections I stayed the same weight, no idea why as the baby, placenta etc must have weighed quite a bit. Maybe it was fluid retention? My MIL was the same.

Judging by the baby bleeding and leaking breasts my body definitely knew!

Heavy bleeding not baby bleeding! Thank goodness

I had 2 emergency c sections. The first was at 34 weeks, and I didn't bond with baby for a while, and breastfeeding was a struggle. Second time I was desperate to avoid a c section partly as I'd thought this mightve affected bonding; after (induced) labour, and 'natural' birth and forceps failed I had no choice but it have a section. No issues bonding this time and breastfeeding was fine. I think the first time round it was the trauma of the situation that affected bonding (and him being premature that affected feeding). So I suspect other factors play a bigger part.

I had and emergency c section and my milk came

through and DS latched on no probs. Our bodies know

Emergency C section, milk was fine but I will say I didn’t bond instantly. Not sure if that was hormones or exhaustion. Took a few days to feel connected