Caesarian survival tips

[Soutine]

In a few weeks' time I am due to deliver my third child by elective caesarian (previous two were natural deliveries).

As I have never experienced a caesarian delivery before I would be very grateful for any practical advice on survival either during and/or afterwards. (Incidentally, we havetaken the vital step of lining up some full time help for a couple of months after the birth... we already have a 3 year old and a 1 1/2 year old.)

And the more you have, the bigger it gets...I have an Opera House balcony!

Oh - I didn't think that the 'overhang' was just caused by the caesarean - don't 'natural' birth mums get that too? Or is it that having your tummy muscle cut leaves it all hanging?

Hi
From personal experience don't think you are Olga Korbet and jump out of bed when you are high on morphine and pop your stitches like I did. More scary than a problem, just have a wonky apron flap (as known in med field for overhang belly - urggggh). Left off the pain killers completely in hospital after that!!!!
Be careful though of what pain killers they send you home on, took them for a day a few days after being at home to help me "mobilise" and fell down the stairs with baby ...fortunately both OK skid on back... again high as a kite. Thought it great that he had slept so much but apparantly he was just drugged too through my milk.....Guess that's why never tried drugs.
Didn't realise you could drive earlier...do...otherwise go mad at home alone and big knickers...sleep when baby sleeps, old one but you will be recovering from major surgery as well as being new Mum.
Enjoy your time in hospital..rest...I did...If you are intent on breast feeding don't let the nurses whip your baby away for a night bottle feed to "help you rest" just because you are in hospital, it is hard to wean them off when you get home (may have just been my dodgy 3rd world hospital)
Good luck and enjoy your baby

griffy, I think it's partly the cut and partly the stitching pulling the cut in...in fact I didn't have an overhang first time round, or only a tiny one, but after that it got deeper and deeper - I could hold a couple of pencils in mine now!

re the painkillers (sibble's message) try to get off the serious ones onto paracetamol ASAP. If you find the pain is too bad you can ask for stronger ones again but if you can cope without it's better for you and the baby.

It's worth asking which type of c-section you're having. I got the new lever-your-muscles-apart version rather than the old cut-through version and I had a really good recovery. Having said that friends having the same op at the same hospital had widely different recoveries so just go with how you feel.

A couple of tips though - get someone to note when you should have your painkillers (mine got forgotten - no wonder it hurt!) and co-didromol which was my hospital's painkiller of choice makes you constipated. I wish they'd warned me!

Thanks so much again for all your advice.

OK, let me throw something else into the equation. What if I were to tell you that we might end up moving house within 8 weeks of the planned c-section delivery. Would we be completely insane even thinking about this? Would planning a move to take place three months after make it any better???

Soutine - it all depends on how much help and support you'll have with the move, I'd say.

For instance, I wouldn't recommend doing it with a transit van and a couple of mates! On the other hand if you'd have a really good removal firm with a packing service, somewhere else to stay while DP/H does all the unpacking/sorting out, and heaps of other support to look after your other gorgeous offspring for the duration it might not be too horrific at any time.

Having said that, moving's just a nightmare - perhaps the longer you leave it, the better?

Oo er, that's no advice at all really - sorry!

All great advice as usual. I had emergency first time and elective second time.
Recommend wearing pjs rather than nightie, as slighty more dignified getting out of bed, and nowhere near scar.
Also re the wind thing- whatever makes you burp- take some. For me it was fizzy water and diet coke, although not too much of the coke.
My dh used to bring in some home-made soup in a flask which helped with the roughage iykwim.
I really enjoyed second time, choosing music etc, staff made it great and couldn't feel a thing.

Another thought - I found being angled for the op itself freaky. Everyone promised it was only a little bit but I felt like I was going to fall and panicked. Once I calmed down it was fine. My anaesthatist (sp???) was brilliant, doing a kind of tour guide commentry so I knew what was going on - if you don't want this make sure you tell them!

Sounds completely barmy to me, Soutine!

However, if you are not in any way a control freak and will be happy to let somebody else do everything, no matter how much they don't do it how you would have done it, then getting it out of the way ASAP could be the best way.

I mean you could possibly cope with, eg, putting stuff away in the kitchen, but even that would involve a lot of bending and stretching, so if you could just supervise others doing it (I'm assuming it won't be just you and DH, you'll have relatives and friends helping too?) you would feel a lot better physically afterwards.

Do let us know how it goes!

Hi soutine
Well it's not quite the same thing but I flew with ds 8 weeks after the op so I had to carry him and 2 bags of handluggage round Heathrow for the change, lift my bags etc and I was fine. Sounds a great excuse to let everyone else do that hard work though!
I think the trouble here is that everyone really does seem to have very different recovery rates and levels of pain. I couldn't do much at all for teh first month but after about 6 weeks was back to normal really, carrying heavy stuff, driving etc.

I think Morocco has hit the nail on the head here, soutine. Recovery rates vary astonishingly. I was disappointed and taken aback with how slowly I recovered physically from my elective c-section. Never having had any surgery before, I had no idea whether I was a "quick healer" etc. I turned out not to be and felt I had to cancel some trips to weddings and things in the first three months. Despite being fairly fit and very healthy during my pregnancy and before, there is no way I could have moved house eight weeks after my op. I know you have help laid on and you sound like a resourceful and organised person, but there is a remote chance your body might let you down a little, so maybe don't make yourself a hostage to fortune...

big knickers - yes
pain relief - definitely, try to anticipate and not wait for pain to actually start.
get catheter out asap and start moving when you feel you can, it does help with recovery
have a shower when you feel you are up to it, it'll make the whole world seem a nicer place and also help you to take off the dressing a bit more easily - a midwife took mine off last time & it hurt more than when I didn it myself. if you have the single stitch with beads it doesn't hurt when that's taken out, so don't worry!
get a private room if you can, sleep is enormously important in speeding up recovery and all the other babies kept me awake after my 1st c-section. this time I had a room to myself after the first night & it was worth every penny.
hold your scar with your hand & brace yourself when you cough/sneeze/laugh..you won't 'pop' if you don't but it's much more comfy.
just look after the baby and get someone else to do EVERYTHING else at home.

This is all fantastic advice and I am fascinated by all the different angles ...
I had a Hattie Jakes lookalike midwife who came bustling into the ward about 4/5 hours after my c/section and said "Well, have we got up yet?" I said, "No, I didn't think I could." And she said, "Nonsense ... no time like the present ... up we get!!" And she hauled me out of bed!! I had already insisted on them removing the morphine drip as I hated that spaced out feeling! A very good friend of mine was amazed to see me up and about when she came to visit me ... she didn't get up for 48 hours after her c/section ... (she went private ... I went NHS!!)
Big knickers YES YES YES ... and get the paper ones for the first few days ....
Mine was a running stitch that is so tiny now ... about 5 inches long.
Oh ... the uncontrollable shaking ... I had that ... freaky feeling ...
And has anyone mentioned the actual sensation you have when they are actually taking the baby out? Somebody once described it as feeling like someone was doing the washing up in your tummy ... and that is exactly how it did feel for me....
And yes ... I agree with everyone who says eat as much fibre as possible ... I didn't poo for a whole week and when I did it was not a pretty sight!!! ...

Take Fybogel for the nasty wind. it's the most repulsive thing on the planet next to Slimfast but it'll free you up in no time!
Have only skimmed this, but if not already mentioned I found a maternity towel over my scar on the inside of my knicks quite comfy for the first few days - helps with laughing/sneezing!

That's a good tip, Bobsmum! On the subject of big knicks - I really couldn't even bear the thought of my paper ones after my c-section - the elastic was just the same level as the wound - ouch! (BTW why are disposable pants so small? I had size 14-16 to be on the safe side and they were still too small) So I would recommend taking big black pants in with you that you don't mind spoiling if needs be. M&S do 3 for a tenner that aren't maternity but are real belly warmers and MUCH more comfy than paper pants. Take loads of these in with you and you can change them or even throw them away if they get too messy. Luckily my dh is a nurse and not squeamish at all so he just took mine home in a tescos bag and threw them in the wash! Sorry to be so graphic...

I had a planned CS with DS - he was breech. Desite being fully informed about what was going on, I reduced myself to tears in pre-op when I couldn't feel my bump anymore. Very weird feeling!
A bubble or 'V' cushion was great for feeding as it kept squirmy baby off the wound. I also fed DS like a rugby ball to avoid this.
Take the painkillers - I didn't realise how good they were and how much I needed them until I missed a couple - it doesn't have to be morphine. I needed them for about a fortnight.
I did shuffle for about a fortnight and getting out of bed/chair was a slow, careful movement.
And M+S big knickers were v. comfy. I couldn't see scar for weeks due to enomous overhang. Ask for dissolvable stitches, they just disappeared.

Soutine, I moved 6 weeks after I had my dd by cs. We had no alternative as our Landlord gave us 2 months' notice the day after dd was born! Fortunately I had no problems after the op and it seemed like a doddle recovering from it compared to the traumatic 'natural birth' that I had with my ds. So you may be lucky like me.

Incidentally, I was able to drive 3 weeks after the caesarian as my insurance company was quite happy and I felt completely back to normal by then.

As regards your moving house - IME you have to forget any thoughts at all of being in control. I had probs with my pregnancy and had to give up work at 5 months and was in hosp for 5 weeks before dd was born. We moved house when I was 5.5 m. I wasn't allowed to do a thing - lift, bend etc at 5 months and then bedrest from 7.5 months. I got my (big M&S) knickers in a twist about it and felt very frustrated to begin with but learned to live with it eventually. So by the time I'd had my c-section I was well used to acting like lady muck and everyone waiting on me hand foot and finger! You MUST let others take the strain, bite your tongue and take a back seat. You'll never forgive yourself if you end up doing some long-term damage whilst you're still recovering.

Does anyone have any tips on recovering from the numbness that you feel around the scar for about six months afterwards? The skin felt really thick and it was quite creepy to touch it. About to have second CS (elective this time) and want to knock this sensation on the head asap.

Mine still feels like that, 20 months on. It's just damaged the nerve endings I spose - that's why it feels so yuk. I wasn't expecting mine to go back to normal at all.

I'm going back 7 years now, but when I had DS2 by emergency section I didn't appear to have any stitches on the outside, they used some sort of glue to stick me together and then put a pressure dressing on - a huge, thick, rigid dressing that covered the whole of my abdomen. If I had any stitches they must have been disolving ones in a very neat running stitch because there was no sign of them when the dressing came off. Maybe someone can enlighten me?

As for the numbness, I had that too, it feels odd doesn't it? I wonder if massage or some sort of stimulation would get the nerves working quicker?

J9, I still have that numbness 6.5 years later! Not a problem but just a sort of 'doesn't belong to me; feeling, like you have when you're coming down with something and your skin feels like it's not part of your normal being.

Now you're all either completely confused or understand exactly what I am saying.....

Just to agree with everyone else really. HUGE pants a must - I had an emergency section last December and whilst I had taken big pants thinking they would hold the maternity pad in place I hadn't realised that they were hipster ones - DOH & ow! Get to know the wards, I got transferred between hospitals because things went so pear shaped and hadn't got a clue where anything was even though I work at the hospital I ended up at!
As for recovery rates they gave me tea & toast 3 hours post op and I was out of bed 24 hours later having a shower but as has already been said recovery rates vary - the girl in the bed next to me took 3 days to sit in the chair next to the bed! (but she was being a drama queen about everything). Lie about poo's if you can - I didn't and ended up staying in 2 days longer than I could have. Try and get a running stitch if you can - these are the ones that have a little bead on each end, one of which gets snipped off when they are going to be removed, then they just get pulled out from the other end in one long string type thing. Everyone warned me that this would be uncomfortable and "feel funny" but I didn't feel a thing.
Most of all ask for help. I felt stupid at first asking them to pass me dd whenever it was needed but after 2 sleepless nights (because I was right next to the nurses station and the buzzers kept going off) I chilled out a bit and realised that's what they're there for.
Overestimate the time it will take for your scar to feel better - I kept thinking 6 weeks and I'll never know. 5 months later it still gets itchy from time to time and when I have a period the one side gets quite tight.
Full time help is a must for when you get home. This was my first baby but I will be having a section again next time because labour & delivery was so awful and extra help is the first thing I'll be arranging!

Hope this helps some. (sorry for wittering on!)