Bleeding after childbirth - how long for??

[soupdragon43]

Hi, just want people's opinions on how long to expect my loss to continue for. I gave birth naturally to my second child four weeks ago. Two weeks after the birth, my loss appeared to have stopped, but then I had a sudden gushing of blood, so bad it soaked right through my trousers and down my legs etc, and it was just bright red watery blood, no clots and no pain. Since then, so for two weeks, I have had the usual discharge but in addition there is always fresh red blood. Now the discharge has completely dried up and all I am losing is fresh red blood albeit in very small quantities but it is there all the time and visible every time I wipe myself on the loo.

I had a midwife visit today she came to give my daughter her VitK oral, and she has checked me as I was convinced this must be a tear I couldn't see, but she gave my nether regions a thorough check and says everything is healed up there but did see the blood and said it 'can happen to some women'.

I don't like these vague explanations, lol!! It doesn't seem right for me, I did not experience this with my first and I normally have very light periods etc. I am convinced the blood is more like the bleeding from a 'wound' rather than 'loss' as it is bright red blood. The midwife is now recommending I go to the doctors and ask for a vaginal swab to check for infection??? This doesn't make sense either.

Is it normal or should I get this checked out. Like I say I have no clots and no pain and feel well otherwise, has anyone else experienced this???

Thanks in advance x

Poor you
Mine was over after about 3 weeks, but I think southislandmum had something nastier so I'll ask her.

The medicos say you should only loose for 6 weeks and advise you to get it checked out if you bleed for longer than this as there may be infection or a bit of placenta left. I had a swab done at 6 weeks which was all clear and carried on bleeding until 10 weeks with no.2, just as I had with no.1

Thanks SouthIslandMum, its just strange that I didn't have this first time around.. Was your's still bright red blood for the whole 10 weeks? Did you ever have sudden gushes? It does worry me that I might have another one of them. I was out in public last time and it wasn't very pleasant, fortunately I was with my mum and sister as I nearly passed out with shock!

I think it was fairly bright red most of the time and it did come and go - it seemed to get heavier if I'd been a bit more active. I never had heavy gushes as you describe though.

my bleeding stopped and then restarted ..i had a minor infection , a week of antibiotics sorted it.... i would absolutely go to the docs..if nothing else they can give you more than the vague explanation you have had.....might aswell rule out infection....