Post partum cough and heavy chest

[Darklava09]

Did anyone suffer with a cough after giving birth?

This started Wednesday alongside a tight chest when I lay down. I can also feel trapped wind or muscle under my left rib age.

Dr google is quite scary for those symptoms but not sure if I’ve just developed this from labour.
Also booked a covid test to be safe.

Anyone else have experience of this?

You need to contact your midwife or out of hours gp and get assessed tonight. Pulmonary embolism is a risk after child birth and any chest symptoms need proper checking. Likely you've just got a cold but do not mess around. Get see n now. Take your baby with you and plenty of nappies but go.

And if you can't contact gp etc go to a&e.

What @Northernlurker said.

Get checked. Better safe.

I agree with @Northernlurker. You really need to be seen now, OP.

Are you on your way?

@Northernlurker I am going to call the maternity unit for advice

Ok, that's fine but you need to be explicit that you have chest symptoms and are concerned about PE. Maternity units are very understaffed at the moment as are all wards and it's easy for somebody over the phone to misunderstand symptoms. You really need to be seen and then you can come back here and tell me I was overreacting

@Northernlurker no I understand. Ideally don’t want to go but it’s difficult with covid and not knowing if it’s a symptom of that or not

@Northernlurker

You need to contact your midwife or out of hours gp and get assessed tonight. Pulmonary embolism is a risk after child birth and any chest symptoms need proper checking. Likely you've just got a cold but do not mess around. Get see n now. Take your baby with you and plenty of nappies but go.

100%

No I know you don't want to go and I don't want to scare you but we don't muck around with this. We have got used, in the developed world, to childbirth being mostly safe and it's easy to overlook that it is actually a significant time of risk for women.
And come to that Covid increases the risk of clots too. Much, much better to be safe, bored and tired from getting checked than dangerously ill.

If you can’t get hold of the mat unit at the very least call 111. Willing to bet you’ll be guided straight in.

How are you getting on @Darklava09

@Northernlurker I spoke to the maternity unit. They wasn’t too concerned as I didn’t have shortness of breath when I called.
They have advised me to book in the GP which I am going to do.
The pain under my ribs has gone now luckily so I can breathe freely it’s just the cough.
I’ve also started taking my
Iron tablets again as I know that can cause breathlessness. I’ve also done the PCR test today so that should rule that out.
Thanks for asking