Second degree tear, 5 weeks postpartum, not healing

[Lori01]

Hi!

I’m a new user, just trying to navigate the site and I will keep it short and sweet!

Had a pretty quick vaginal delivery with my second son which ended in me having a second-degree tear, midwife took about 20 minutes to stitch me up and said there were 10 stitches, both muscle and skin

I was in a lot of pain for awhile and at four weeks I went to the GP because I couldn’t sit down straight, turns out I had an infection and I was given antibiotics and a cream which have really helped the area a lot, I can sit down properly now and don’t have any pain at all apart from when I’m sitting on the toilet, I can feel a slight tingly stretching feeling

Hoooooowever (tmi) I had a look down there yesterday and there is no blood, no soreness, no redness but the tear looks like it’s open yet healed at the same time. Like my vaginal opening is way longer than it should be!! What do I do? The skin is separated but healed and normal!!?

Hi there @Lori01,

Just bumping this for you so hopefully some Mumsnetter's will be along soon with some useful information.

Thank youu 😭 xxx

Can you ask your GP to take a look when you have your 6-8 week post partum check-up. If you're still not happy, ask for a gynae referral.

Mine didn't heal particularly well after DC1. When I had DC2 a couple of years later, it reopened and the midwife who stitched me up that time did a much better job

Mines was like this and took months to heal. Hope you're not in pain anymore!

Yeah I will definitely ask at my check up! Thank ya!

Not in any pain, it’s just very open and I’m not sure why or what would need to be done :(

I have the same thing, I saw it at 8 weeks and haven’t dared look since! I guessed it will gradually get better. 😩

How does it feel now? Are you in pain? Feel free not to answer but have you been able to have sex yet ? I really want to but scareddddd loll!

Sounds like granulation. They can give you cream for it.

Thank you! Will see the GP next week so hopefully get to the bottom of it!

It feels better, but I can’t bring myself to look I was so shocked! And no I have not had sex, need to bite the bullet and get someone to look, but midwives seemed to think it was ok. 😬

Hmm. Do you mean your vaginal opening is much longer now? That's happened to me after a 2nd degree tear repair where a few stitches seem to have come out during healing. I don't like the way it looks or how it performs (!) but the midiwfe said there was no way they'd do anything about it on the NHS.