sis in law very swollen & yellow looking after childbirth - normal?

[flamingnora]

Sister in law gave birth early hours of Xmas Day. She was 10 days overdue and gave birth naturally but all pretty difficult (long time pushing with nothing happening before midwives finally gave her episiotomy to get baby out). She retained water in final trimester but is now VERY swollen and her ankles are enormous & very uncomfortable. She also looked a bit yellow & jaundiced to me. The medical team in the hospital seem pretty useless (took 10 minutes to answer the emergency button today) and have old her she's fine and just needs to elevate legs & see her GP.
Should I be worried about this? What do we do? Second opinion? How do we go about doing that?

Are the white of her eyes yellow?? I had kidney failure 3 weeks after DD2 was born due to gall stones (they are common after birth of baby i hear).
I would ask them to do a simple blood test for kidney function and also pre eclampicia, as this can sometimes (thought very rare) happen after birth.

As for second opinion just ask them, easy done

thanks a mill! There honestly seem to be no doctors around the ward - it's taken over 8 hours for her to be seen by a doctor today and he wasn't exactly inspiring. Asking for so much as a glass of water seems problematic so I'm guessing they'd need to go to another A&E to get a second opinion?
I don't know about whites of eyes but will definitely investigate. Her face looked yellow to me but my brother hadn't picked up on this so it could just be my paranoia. Will ask tomorrow. Thanks again.

ooo i looked really yellow and swollen after I'd given birth. I didn't realise at the time but looking at the photos now i look really weird and not very well at all (photos were taken about 3wks after birth).

It just went away though, the swelling was water retention and it gradually went.
No idea what the whole yellow thing was!

it does sounds as if she has gall stones which is very common as lisa pointed out. The fluid in her ankles sounds as if it could have been a bit of pre eclampsia. Was she swollen before the birth. If she is yellow ,it is a sign thata her liver is not dealing with the bile and liver by products.
does she feel ill.sickly and nauseous

she's not complaining of feeling unwell or nauseous, just says she's very uncomfortable. she was pretty puffy before the birth but her feet and ankles were fine.

was she diagnosed with pre eclampsia prior to the birth.

I wasn't yellow, but I swelled up sooooo much after I gave birth. I was worried but was just told that it would go. It did take a while but it went away. When I was walking around, I could feel the fluid in my feet wobbling around, eughhhhh. lol.

I was also VERY swollen after the birth esp ankles and legs, but not before

took ages to drain away

i was swollen for 6 weeks before and hospitalised for 6 weeks after as my swellings didnt go down for that long. I looked moon faced,fingers like sausages and if i pushed my finger in my ankle flesh,it stayed dented in. I put 3.5 stone on and beeby only weighed 4lb4oz. So the rest was fluid. Thought i was going to pop

Is she anaemic?

Jalopy - she is indeed! They finally did a blood test at the hospital at noon today and results in at 7 tonight indicate she is seriously anaemic. She's now in for a blood transfusion so I have everything crossed she'll start to feel better soon-ish!
Thanks for all the wise words, guys. It's much appreciated.

have they now got to find out why she is so anaemic

I'm not sure. She's looked pale for a while but looked seriously awful after the birth. Looks like little one has a tongue tie too so she's finding breast feeding very tricky. I feel so bad for her and just hope she starts to feel better today after her transfusions (last I heard she'd had 2 pints of blood). Very much hoping to see them today or tomorrow but I do know they want to try to settle in as a family too and have one night on their own with the baby!