C section recovery tips?

[PoppyS34wantstogohome]

Had an emergency c section on monday, at 30+2 due to a big placenta previa bleed.

Has anyone got any top tips for recovering from the c section?

I think the large quantities of blood I lost over the weekend, combined with lack of food and sleep, has made me a bit weaker than I should be.

(hope this is the right place to put this post??!

Thanks! :o

Go slowly with pretty much everything. I remember walking out of the hospital corridor when I was allowed home seemed to take forever. All the simple things you would do without thinking, do gently e.g. getting into the car. Do not feel the pressure to do everything - its a major op. Sometimes people forget that and focus on baby not mum. Agree with all posters on the pain in the shoulder. No-one told me about it, so I only found out a few days later what it was but the pain was horrible. I remember crying into my dinner. I was prescribed the iron tablets, but taking the three a day they prescribed was horrendous (ended up doing Take a Break puzzles on the loo to pass the time - no pun intended), so I dropped it to 1 or 2 and just had lots of iron rich food instead. I gave up trying to wear nice knickers for months it was just too painful, so I got huge granny ones that came up over the belly (3 sizes too big). Also wear huge pj pants around the house or a dress/nighty (I wore pants cos couldn't be bothered shaving legs). As a lot of my trousers sat on the scar and rubbed. Consequently my scar got infected. Still love the big knickers 8 months later!

Some really helpful tips on here. I had an emergency c-sec with DS and it came as a shock, none of my friends had been through it so I had no advice or understanding. I will be having a planned c-sec at the end of July and just reading your posts has made me feel more positive about coping this time. Thanks everyone! x

Sorry, didn't mean to post & run about the scar massage. I've been trying to find some links as its a bit hard to explain, but the sites I found are rather woo.

I was told, from about 6 weeks, once the scar is healed nicely, massage a couple of times a day.

Put your hands flat on your scar and apply gentle, firm pressure. Do gentle, small circular movements One way then the other. You are aiming to move the top layer of skin over the deeper layers of fat, muscle etc. It will sting a bit to start with, which is ok but it shouldn't hurt. Over a few weeks build up the pressure so you are working deeper layers.

Helps prevent the overhang and internal adhesions.

There is a YouTube video but I can't do a like at the moment .