How soon could you do the following after elective c-section?

[HotSwissCheese]

I've pretty much decided on an elective CS, and have read lots on how quickly people have recovered after. I'd be really grateful though to hear how long it took people before they could do these specific things:

Go on an hour's walk
Pick up baby in car seat
Drive
Resume exercise such as running
Have sex
Sit up in bed/on sofa without pain
Resume normal household tasks such as washing and hoovering
Move about normally with 0 pain

Thanks so much ladies.

@Dyslexicwonder
What a bizarre highlight :/ I too had showers after my C-sections but the highlight of my all my births was holding my healthy baby in my arms after carrying them for 9 months.
Not getting out of bed which I do every single day.

2 ELCS here…

Go on an hour's walk 7-10 days

Pick up baby in car seat - 7-10 days? I think I mostly left it in the car and carried the babies in and out of the house

Drive - 2 weeks because DH was on paternity leave and doing all the driving but could have been sooner
Resume exercise such as running - did peloton spin after 5 weeks, had a few rehab/assessment physio sessions until she was happy for me to run and then running a couple of times a week from 8 weeks.

Have sex - wouldn’t have wanted to try before the 6 week check, didn’t really get back into my stride until I had stopped BFing every few hours

Sit up in bed/on sofa without pain - 3-5 days. GET A TRX STRAP! Attach it to your headboard and use your arms to pull yourself up

Resume normal household tasks such as washing and hoovering - ha! That’s what DH was for. But maybe a week or 2 if I had needed to?

Move about normally with 0 pain - I didn’t feel <right> until the stitches came out but I think that was more in my mind than physical pain

About 55% according to this study published in 2020

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7527835/

For goodness sake. I don’t mean to be rude @Dyslexicwonder but this is not a thread for you to bang the drum for vaginal births. OP asked specifically for experiences of elective C-sections, dshe didn’t ask to be convinced to go for another option, and it’s not your place to try to change her mind, particularly with knowing nothing of the circumstances behind ‘choosing’ a C-section. The OPs reasons are her own and they are valid.

You think that’s a good thing? So 45% chance of complications and/or life changing injury. No thanks.

I said one of the highlights not the best bit. I found it very liberating to be able to move more freely after giving birth as I had literally had a weight lifted, plenty of people talk about the tea and toast afterwards, I don't think enjoying the shower us so weird. Good job we are all different eh ?

It certainly is. I can’t imagine ever thinking a shower was so memorable less than hours after meeting my baby which was obviously huge for me.

@HotSwissCheese I think this post by @Dyslexicwonder has summed up why an ELCS is favoured by many women.

Only a 55% chance of a “straight forward” no complication birth.
Good luck with your birth, however it ends up happening!

have you read the definition of ‘complicated’ for the purposes of that study..?

It is making the point you think it is making…

One EMCS and one ELCS. I could not do any of the above within the first 48 hours. After that, I got better very steeply. I would say I was 90% back to normal within a week though I did not drive for another week (just to be safe on the emergncy brake). I had no desire for sex (FFS!) so that was not an issue.

Once the stitches were out, it was like I never had a CS.

I think I had a shower sooner after my C-section than I did after my uncomplicated VBAC.

I had my C-section at around midnight and was helped to the shower the following afternoon once my catheter had been removed and I'd managed to pee.

I had my VBAC late morning, then had some lunch, and then was enjoying my baby so much I couldn't be bothered to shower until the next day.

Having attended possibly hundreds of births of all types and done extensive reasearch- yes I thought those odds were worth it for me. Of course it is a personal decision but I do think it is worth stating that vaginal birth when it goes well is better for mothers and babies than cesarean sections. The C-section rate is a huge issue in our health service and our society, with many women believing it is superior I supposed because there is an element of control.

As OP seemed worried about when she could so certain things I was just pointing out with an uncomplicated birth she could do virtually all of them sooner. BT W the definition of complicated in that paper includes some fairly low level intervention such as a simple venous, which is arguably preferable to a C-section anyway.

@Dyslexicwonder IF OP has an uncomplicated vaginal birth. I don't know why you bother to state the obvious. Anyway, well done you.

Go on an hour's walk - 3 months
Pick up baby in car seat - 4 months
Drive - 8 weeks
Resume exercise such as running N/A
Have sex - 6 months
Sit up in bed/on sofa without pain - 8 weeks
Resume normal household tasks such as washing and hoovering - 3 months
Move about normally with 0 pain - still have some pain 9 months on.

Wow I can’t believe people this stupid exist and walk among us @Dyslexicwonder

oh @HotSwissCheese I know you said you wanted c-section information but here’s my completely irrelevant experience of going swimming last week

• got up packed the swimming gear but couldn’t find a hat
• Drove go swimming pool nearby
• bought a new hat at reception
• got changed in the changing rooms
• went swimming
• had a lovely shower and dried my hair
• got dressed and headed home

Hope this is helpful 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

Would you do something that had a 45% chance of death?

@Dyslexicwonder without wanting to sound rude, I didn't start this thread to hear about people's opinions on vaginal vs cesarean births. I'm perfectly capable of deciding for myself which route to take, which I have done alongside medical professionals. You've no idea who I am or why I've chosen this route, and it's not really any of your business either.
To be frank, I'm already quite fed up with the number of women who feel the need to jump into conversations about cesareans to preach about vaginal births. It's irritating and condescending.

Please stop derailing the thread. It was such a positive and interesting thread before you jumped in. Thank you.

Yes please do ignore that poster. I had a purely elective first time low risk pregnancy after months of deliberation and research.

To give you the positives and put your mind at ease - c section data includes everyone who ends up on the table whether they were planned or not. Vaginal birth data includes everyone who didn’t and it’s pretty even odds at that stage with the swings going towards certain risks for vaginal and certain risks for c.

Only a few studies worldwide have actually separated it out into planned vaginal (to include unplanned c’s under vaginal outcomes) and planned cs as separate. In this data it’s markedly safer for both baby and mother to have planned c. Outcomes are better, death and injury rates are better.

And that’s no surprise. Besides the delays to surgery emergency cs represent; would you rather the top surgeon in the hospital doing your c carefully at 9am after a full nights sleep and a peaceful coffee or a green doctor who hasn’t sleep for 15 hours nervously and panicked operating on you at 4am. And then hurriedly sewing you back up because a bleeper is going off and they need to rush to an emergency in another room.

Whilst I didn’t think my body would ever be the same during the recovery after. It was bar a barely visible scar. I am coming up to the 1 year anniversary and so impressed I feel like sending the surgeon some pics of my boy, my mon pubis region and a box of chocolates but wonder if that might be a bit odd 🤣🤣🤣 But if I was a surgeon I would want to see the success stories - so who knows. I might still. 😂

Wow I can’t believe people this stupid exist and walk among us @Dyslexicwonder

Someone read that paper and took that from it , yet I am the stupid one ?

Seriously though, enough.

OP has said your comments and dogma are unhelpful, PPs have said your comments are unhelpful- please drop it.

You imply that you are a midwife… this dog with a bone obsession about natural birth, when the subject is quite clearly CS is what has given so many midwives such a bad name and why so many women opt for consultant-led care

Maybe stop and think about the bigger message you are sending from your posts.
You might think it is ‘vaginal births are better than CS’ but all I am hearing is ‘I am yet another midwife who won’t listen to you because all I want to do is push my own agenda’. And that is unfair on all the good midwives as well as mothers

Sorry your thread got derailed OP. Having had a natural and c-section birth I can confirm there are positive and negatives to both (which is hardly surprising). What matters the most is that your are as at peace with your decision as possible. If you have the chance to make that decision in advance all the better. The friends I know who have had the more difficult birth experiences are those who have ended up with and emergency c-section and had the whole thing taken out of their hands.

I hope you’re doing ok, it’s hard enough as it is without having someone bleat on about the supposed joys of natural birth !!!

Wasn't the whole Shropshire maternity care scandal attributed to midwives pushing vaginal birth at all costs?

C-sections are life saving operations.

I didn't want to have a C-section and I felt sad about it afterwards. But my baby was healthy, I am healthy, my incision healed well and I just have a little scar.

Second time round my doctor told me that most of her patients who'd had a previous C-section choose to have an elective C-section next time round. I could have done that and I thought long and hard about it. But ultimately I wanted to experience a vaginal birth. If I hadn't wanted that, a repeat C-section would have been a no brainer.

To be honest, the postpartum haemorrhoids I got just after giving birth vaginally caused me almost as much pain in the first two weeks as my C-section incision had done.

I am leaving the thread now. Just for the record I am not a midwife. I hope OP has a good birth experience whatever she chooses and more importantly both she and LO are well following it. Good luck OP.

My consultant for my ELCS was brilliant. I had to sign a list of risks/complications on my form for my elective, but when she handed it over she said something like 'I could give you a similar list that looks just as scary for vaginal births but no one ever has to sign one of those!'. She said each method has risks so it's entirely about what you're comfortable with, and for me, the known quantity of an ELCS having already had one was far more appealing than a gambling on a vaginal birth.

I accept my view might be a bit skewed having a close friend whose baby got stuck during a vaginal delivery, and their baby ended up with brain damage due to lack of oxygen. It made me feel sick that a totally healthy baby ended up severely disabled due to method of delivery, and I felt like a section was way less likely to have something like that happen to the baby, even if on paper it was more dangerous for me. I'd rather take the risk for myself.

When I looked, there seemed to be very little research on outcomes for C section babies v vaginal where the sections are not being carried out for any medical reasons to do with the baby's health. Most statistics include sections that are carried out precisely because the baby is potentially unwell or has to receive immediate medical attention at delivery, so it makes sense there is a higher rate of infant mortality when you include those births. For example, this from a Guardian article: 'Babies born by caesarean are more than twice as likely (14% versus 6%) to be admitted to neonatal intensive care, but this figure does not account for the fact that most caesareans are carried out for medical reasons. This makes it tricky to calculate how much, if any, additional risk is down to the caesarean rather than underlying risk factors.'

Anyway I've rambled a bit, but I hope your section is as lovely as mine was, OP. I genuinely think back on it fondly, I can remember the music they were playing, the gentle chat between the surgeons and nurses, etc. It's a nice memory. Unlike my first birth, which was an attempted vaginal that ended in an EMCS. I try not to think about that at all.

2 c sections - second one emergency with twins

Go on an hour's walk - I was up walking within hours as babies in NICU. Bit longer walks definitely within 2 weeks

Pick up baby in car seat - 2 weeks

Drive - 10 days

Resume exercise such as running - probably within 6 weeks had I felt like it - but honestly too knackered!

Have sex - 6 weeks

Sit up in bed/on sofa without pain - within a few days

Resume normal household tasks such as washing and hoovering - within a few days

Move about normally with 0 pain - 0 pain within 2 weeks