Ok ...afterpains...this is worrying me more than actually giving birth to no.4. What can I do besides cry?

[sorkycake]

they were rather painful whilst breastfeeding no.3 and I'm aware they get worse with each birth, but what can I do to help me cope?

Shit I had forgot about afterpains ...noooooo.

Mine lasted a week after dd4 they were bad but paracetomal helped .

I am dreading it too

When i had #5 i actually asked the midwife to check for another baby. It was awful, the g&a helped for a while. I was at home so had to wait for the doctor to come and do the baby check the next day before i could get some serious prescription drugs.

With #6 i had an epidural so the immediate pain was far less. It still bloody hurt for weeks afterwards especially when feeding

I am having this one at home too and am more worried about the afterpains than pushing the baby out!

Afterpains were worse then the contractions tbh. Luckily I had some co-codamol lying around after bashing my back the week before which the midwife said were fine to take. Mind you, they did their trick - uterus was back to normal size and lochia finished within 2 weeks.

I had them bad with my 2nd but none whatsoever with my 3rd. I had paracetamol & codeine in ready for them too and didn't need them.

Awful after pains after my DD.
Relentless, worse than labour because no let up, no break, was groaning and crying and waving my legs around. Just awful.

Midwife gave me Tramadol.

Worked like a dream. Went from horrific agony, to nothing. No pain whatsoever!

It was great.

My MW who did my home visits told me Tramadol is a form of morphine, and didn't I know.

No I didn't, I only knew the pain was worse than transition, and that was horrendous.

If/When I have another, I'm going to get some Tramadol before I go into labour, so I have it ready, because it does take about 20 mins to take effect.

The weird thing is that I have never had any afterpain, and I have had 12, and reading this I now know how lucky I was....

Ooh this was my thread

Had no4 was a breeze (still haven't got around to a BS yet)

Gp gave me Tramadol worked a treat!

Oh God my afterpains this time were horrible, I lived on paracetamol for the first week but was back into my pre-pregnancy trousers on day 6 post partum so they were clearly working for me!

sorry to jump in here bu my afterpains were really bad after my 3rd baby, but did have spd so not sure if it was that and the afterpains or what!!!

whats the afterpains like if you have a cs, as when we have another baby i will need a cs because of my spd, thanks mt3 x

You can always ask for 'up the bum Voltarol' from your widwives. Wonderful stuff

You can always ask for 'up the bum Voltarol' from your widwives. Wonderful stuff

I had the worst after pains with my third child. Didnt notice them after the 4th one at all.

I feel for you. I'll be honest with you and tell you that mine got progressively worse with each pregnancy - I have four children. I think those afterpains interfered with breastfeeding as I kept trying to put off feeding as the pain was excruitating. I probably made it much worse by being a crap breastfeeder and expressing a lot rather than proper feeding - I had terribly sensitive nipples and it breastfeeding was agony. I suspect if I'd fed through the pain and toughened up a bit , the afterpains and breat soreness would have passed much much quicker.

I am a complete wimp and have the pain threshold of a gnat.

Congratulations on your pregnancy.

mine were fine for number 4. I put it down to having a physiological final stage this time