Who took ages to recover from childbirth? Help and advice wanted from survivors!!

[godivas]

Hello everyone, I actually read old posts about this but wanted to hear more details since I am really despairing now.

I gave birth to ds1 10 months ago. Total trauma in the delivery room. No episiotomy. Ventouse and 3rd degree tears.

I have so much going on down there still that I started wondering if I will ever recover from this.

Sometimes hurting on the outside, sometimes aching on the inside, sometimes a feeling as if my soft tissues are burned off at the enterance. Sometimes I feel as if I was hit by a bus on the perineum. Sometimes I am totally fine.

Anyone experienced such complications and pain like this for months and months after the delivery?

oh lotster, wine definetely! Thank you very much for the information. I'll check out the oil, I'm using almond oil and a lidokain anaesthetic at the moment but I guess maybe massaging does not fix things once the scar is formed maybe? Or maybe it'd still help break it up like you said.. I don't know if I have scar tissue though. The opening hurts so much (the bits abused by wrong vacuum application) but I can't see a protruding scar, like many women mention. But my doctor said there was a "cyst" formation in the perineum.

I agree with godiva, great advice you all have been giving, precious info! Thanks ladies!

No probs. Wine is a wonder!

Whilst it's easier to stop the build up during healing, you can definately help to break it up afterwards.

My BF could never touch her own bellybutton, let alone her C/S scar (!!), so finally 3 years afterwards I'm getting her to massage her scar with oil and it's helping her.

Use small firm cirular strokes, it's the rubbing as much as the oil that does it. Even if you don't have scarring, it's worth a go to desensitise the area.

Good luck!

Hi ladies
I second what Lotster said scar tissue can definitely be improved once it has formed. Rubbing can help the body to reabsorb the collagen back in into the body it just takes longer the longer you have had the scar.
It took probably two years to stop getting any twinges from my section scar but I would still feel it tugging when in my fav nookie position (sorry TMI!) After my labour the scar was very tender for a couple of weeks but since then no tugging any more
So for perineal repairs stretching and massaging the area as much as possible should help.

Just found this thread (pregnancy insomnia). I am amazed by the courage of so many women on this thread. What appalling stories.

I thought I had it bad with a third degree tear, multiple internal lacerations and nine months of intensive physiotherapy... but can't quite believe how horrific some of these stories are. It makes me really really sad .

Anyway - I came here to say to the OP that it WILL get better. My DD is 3.5 now and I'm 30 weeks pregnant (having a scheduled c/s obviously). I think one of the hardest things is that no one sympathises at all with you after a tear - and the deep trauma of it is difficult to describe unless you've been through it. I remember being so angry that no one had even mentioned the possibility to me antenatally so I didn't really know what had happened to me - and I was left with no postnatal care due to a postcode/catchment area nightmare - and so frightened.

Hmm. I'd better not dwell on this or I'll never get back to sleep...

Just had to add to this. I had emergency cs with ds and then a vbac with dd. I had 15 stitches in my labia and dd has just turned 6 and it still hurts. (As it happens, I only had the stitches because the head midwife delivered my dd and I had post partum haemmorage and the doctors were going to leave me with two flapping pieces until the midwife insisted they at least join the two pieces.) It was probably over a year before it wasn't significantly painful. It has only been in the last year or so that sex has not been excruciatingly painful.... now it's just bearable painful.
If I had it to do all over again, I would have had an elective cs with both. And I recommend to all my girl friends over the age of 30 to have an elective cs. I was 37 and 39 when I had my two and our bodies were just not designed to have kids at that age....more like at 13.

Interesting that you make the link with age, sofiaames. I was 34 when I had my DD so there may be something in it. I had a postpartum haemorrhage too - and when I almost collapsed in the hospital bathroom, blood pouring out of me, and pulled the red emergency cord, a midwife came and told me to "pull yourself together - you've only had a baby"!

Yes, I made an official complaint - much good it did me as the head of midwifery left shortly afterwards to go to a better job . Never got anything in writing.

It's just appalling. Really!

(Must add though that I'm booked with a different hospital this time round - they know my history and are being very very careful to try to make things better this time round. Very compassionate - even made me cry as they told me I was "very brave" to be having another baby at all!)

That is interesting isn't it? I was 32, same age as my mum when I had my first and we both had forceps and big tears...

My sisters who had their first(s) at 18 and 21 didn't tear as far as I know. Maybe our stretchiness and ability to heal does go down later on...

Biggreypants I have to say it... My imagination is running wild as to that position and avoiding it in the future! Guess I'll know it when/if I get there...

With my perineal history and a C/S due in Feb I do dread about having two areas to worry about... Seems unfair to have scars and tenderness in two places, but then I want 2nd child so I suppose it's the lot of us ladies. Just preying the dreaded infections leave me alone this time. I heard calendula is ggod to take to prevent them so will be trying it at the time.

ha ha Lotster its the only one that does it for me IYKWIM
really don't worry about the cs and when its all healed you will be left with a beautiful silver smile

agree too about age you see all the teenage mums with newborns wearing skin tight jeans and a thong string poking out the back! I couldn't wear thongs before I gave birth!

I have no way of guessing what position that is. I had to look up a dictionary even for the word "nookie" (not a native speaker)

I know someone who apparently gave birth at 19 with no complications, and later on at 29 with horrendous outcomes. She was told that her pelvic bone had settled in the last decade(or something like that, somethings get lost in translation), that's why it was more difficult even though it was her second delivery. But I am 29 too, I was hoping that I'd recover sooner because I am young. Never thought of myself as old. Well, I am not 13, that's for sure

I guess we were really made to give birth around 15 and die around 35.

i am 34 and I have to admit I do feel pretty old at the moment! I think once you have children you start aging in dog years ( 1 years feels like 7!)

I would not mind waking up one morning having aged ten years but healthy. Serious health problems help put things in perspective I guess. I saw an advertisement recently which read : "Happiness is good health and bad memory". Hope everything we are going through will be just a bad memory one day.

2 questions

verso if you are still reading this, what was the intensive physiotherapy for? Was it for muscle tone? What is it they do during physio?

theautomated and lotster, you two say sex was somewhat conducive to recovery, does this mean it gets painfree at some point (truth please!)

BTW,

MrsMattie and Verso, thank you both for the messages and good luck to you both with your deliveries this time

godivas I was wired up to a biofeedback machine to do long and short pelvic floor exercises. I had to do this once a week with the machine and 4/5 times a day with a gadget they gave me to use at home. After a few months I had a pelvic floor assessment, which involved being hooked up to lots of different machines, things being put into and taken out of my bottom, having to hold, having to push etc, and finally an ultrasound of the muscle damage and scar.

This enabled them to assess me as having lasting muscle damage to the anal sphincter, which the urogynaecological consultant said meant I had a 40% risk of permanenent faecal incontinence from ANY future vaginal deliveries. (The risk would be higher with ventouse and/or forceps, like DD was.) As time goes on your pelvic floor strength decreases (all your muscle tone decreases with age and this is no exception) so I have to keep doing the pelvic floor exercises for life if I want to prevent continence issues.

I still have problems with 'urgency' and can't hold in wind or diarrhoea at all - but I have enough control restored to be able to hold down a job and mix in civilised society, which is a damn sight better than when DD was born, when I was regularly soiling myself and had no control at all.

Sorry for the marathon post - I bet you wish I'd never started!

On the pain front - sex has never felt the same again for me - but it doesn't actually hurt any more even though it's not exactly pleasurable. I still feel somewhat 'violated' - but am getting over it slowly.

This is interesting reading. I was 30 when I gave birth and had my horrendous 3rd degree tear. My mum had me at 17 and had no problems at all. She then proceeded to have two more children over the course of 5 years with not a single stitch. Infact coming to think of it, all the women in my family had children before they hit 25 and none of them had the problems I've got now. One could reason to have children young I guess, more chance of having an easier birth/better recovery? Maybe I will persuade my own daughter to have her first baby, if she ever wants one, before she hits 30. Alternatively will be recommending a c section.

To answer your question godiva, I have found sex has got better (but then its been 3 years) At first everything felt tight and sorry it its tmi it felt like nothing would fit... Over time the tightness has gone but on penetration the entrance does feel a little sore BUT it is much much better and I hope it continues to improve. Certain positions are a no no mainly ones which involve very deep penetration. Makes me feel sad, I remember having sex pre childbirth and taking it for granted it wouldnt hurt and just, well enjoying it.

Hi girls,

Jst wanted to reassure you all that you will recover in time and yes, the good news, sex can be enjoyable again !!

I have a DD who's 5.5. At her birth I was doing well, but needed a ventouse towards the end so was cut.

After her birth, when they started to deliver the placenta things started to go badly wrong and I suffered a 3rd degree inverted uterus which is basically where your womb turns itself inside out and comes out through your vagina. V.V. rare so hope this doesn't scare any pregnant ladies. To put it in perspective I was the first person in 30 years for it to happen to in my hospital.

Anyway, what that basically meant was I was cut from my bottom right up both sides of my labia and internally stitched back together which took over an hour.
I lost just over 5 pints of blood and DH was told I wasn't going to make it but to everyones suprise I pulled through

But back to the initial story, sex hurt for a while but I can honestly say everything feels fine now. My stitches sometimes get sore even now but not that often really.

I don't normally tell people what I went through as I am not looking for sympathy etc.. but if I can put somebodys mind at rest after a difficult birth then great

mysticsurprise, sorry to be dense but you say your stitches sometimes get sore, did you have permanent non dissolvable stitches, or is it the scar tissue that hurts?

Good to know that a full recovery can be made after a 3rd degree tear!

Godivas, I would say that yes at the time, it is pain free. Although if it's too vigorous then I can feel a bit sore for a day after. Not too bad though.

Honest.

the automatic, sorry, I meant the scars. Usually fine but if I get a water infection or something then the scars will flair up and become quite swollen. That doesn't happen very often though.

I had a 3rd degree tear as well as internal tearing. In the long run it's agreed that I probably had nerve damage. ds is now 2.5 and I am on the mend. I found sex impossible till he was closer to 2, though it is nice now as long as we are careful. I found 3 things that were useful in helping the pain.

First was ultrasound physiotherapy, which was limited but helped. It was a hard slog getting that arranged, but a private consultation with an emapthetic OB got me into the system.

second was pain relief medication especially for nerve problems - gabapentin. originally designed for epilepsy, it's effective in neurological pain too. That was arranged through a pain management centre, but if they suspect you have nerve damage try and see if it may be an option. It was another step that helped bring the pain level down a bit.

final and most awesome has been acupuncture and acutonic therapy! acutonic is needle-free acupuncture using sound. thats directly on the area, with traditional needle therapy for deeper level treatment, though it's applied on arms, legs and feet along other energy chanels.

traditional chinese medicine believes that any scarring interrupts the flow of chi and can result in all kinds of problems. Worse for us is that the perineum has a vital point for yin (as in yin/yang) energy point. Tearing in this spot leads to serious imbalance in chi flow. Worse for me was the position ds was in that also affected my yang point near my sacrum, so I really got the nastiest case scenario. 6 months of treatment so far and worth every cent! Before seeing her I couldn't stand for long without pain, now I can stand for ages and even have sex (carefully) though running and jumping are still out.

It may never be the same again 'down there', but I am just relieved I will eventually be pain free again, and that I can have a normal relationship with my very patient and understanding DH. For a very long time I didn't know if I ever would be pain free and able to have a normal reationship, and that was terrifying. Give it time, you will get there eventually. It is a long and hard road, and I spend many days wondering "why me" but that doesn't change anything. Direct your energy into finding a solution that helps you recover. For me, the why me hasn't gone away yet, but it is fading into a less overwhelming thing as I continue to improve.

Sorry to rant, but I know how hard it is to adjust looking after a baby when you are in need of care yourself. It's even harder when the system just doesn't listen. Hang in there until you find someone who is able to help

Theautomatic, I hope it continues improving for you too... I know so well what you mean by having taken it for granted when we were healthy before childbirth. Good old times; never knew how happy I was...

Mysticsuprise, especially stories like yours make me so angry with the word "natural" or "normal" being attached to childbirth. I don't know why it is expected of any woman to take these risks in the name of childbirth let alone cope with such consequences.. I am glad to hear your bits have, for the most part, healed. Thanks for sharing.

Verso, similarly I sympathise with you so much when you say "violated". I am really sorry that sex isn't pleasurable any more. I get pissed off when doctors blame psychological causes immediately (it kinda makes them redundant, doesn't it?) but I am guessing lack of pleasure in cases like ours may have a lot to do with the trauma we have been through. At the moment, even hugging dh makes me remember the delivery room violations, the chaos, the blood and the screaming, and I start crying. I don't know when I'll have the courage to do the deed actually. At the risk of nauseating you with TMI, I should add that I never took any pleasure from vaginal sex, penetration on its own never meant anything to me, but now I realise that it is an essential part of the whole ritual, and not being able to do it now makes me feel upset and handicapped anyway. Hope after the second kid, you become a new woman and discover a thousand new ways of pleasure!

As for physiotherapy I was asking to see if there was anything I could do by myself but I see there were a lot of machines and methods involved. As there should be. Where I live, they haven't even heard of obstetric physiotherapy. There is one Vulva Clinic in the country which has a two-year waiting list +plus+ it belongs to the hospital where they destroyed me in the first place. I don't have incontinence probs at the moment, though I am not sure if that says anything for even the near future.

Vizbizz, i am so sorry to hear that you had to spend so many years in pain, I know what even a few months of this does to one mentally. I'll see if I can get any acupuncture or acutonic therapy here but I doubt it. I'll check gabapentin's active ingredient to see if I can get hold of an equivalent drug but in the rich dump where I live any medicine or treatment of any real effect is either banned or rationed beyond reach. Thank you very much. Hope everything keeps improving for you.

Lotster, looking forward to "vigorous"

I'm so that the aftercare for some people is so bad-and this is meant to be a progressive country!

I had a different experience to many of you on here (massive baby) which resulted in emergency c-section which didn't heal properly. In fact, I was sore for 6 months + until I started using a high quality aloe vera gelly on the wound- not only did the raw parts finally heal but it has really reduced the scar tissue aswell. I couldn't even bear waistbands of trousers of knickers on the area! I had some really nasty lumps of scar tissue that were really painful but the aloe has got rid of these and its much flatter and healed looking as a result.

Am due to go in for a 2nd c-section in 2 weeks time and will be using it from the start this time as well as drinking the gel to heal from the inside!

Hope this helps anyone- I have a midwife friend and she recommends it to her patients use it on childbirth wounds too.

I starting reading this thread and it made me weepy eyed and so in awe of the strength of people here to go through all of that.

I'm 35 and about to have my first baby. My consultant says I should opt for an elective c-section. The idea of major surgery has SCARED me so much, I was thinking about trying natural delivery but having read this thread I've learnt that natural delivery can be so life changing and isnt problem free either.

He is recommending c-section as I have a weak pelvic floor (I've never been able to jog/sneeze/go to areobics without a sanitary pad as I leak a little urine doing these things).

What do you ladies think? So many people seem to frown on having an elective c-section...

Having an elective section because you think that it will be a walk in the park does tend to be a bit frowned upon on MN. But having an elective section because you have been advised that it's the best thing for your future continence is completely different! Let people frown if they want, it is your body and your decision.

A lot of the complications and risks involved in sections tend to be emergency sections, rather than elective sections, by the way. Not that an elective section is easy - you will still be giving birth - but if you have been worried about general C section statistics then an elective section is safer than either an emergency section or an instrumental vaginal delivery.

Gilliana1, mrstittlemouse is right about those statistics. The chaos of an emergency c-section is what increases the likelihood of complications commonly associated with caesereans. I wish I were you now, reading threads like this BEFORE I gave birth so that I'd have a chance to make a more informed choice.