C-section recovery - what does it feel like?

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What does the pain feel like? Is it like an amplified version of the burning pain you feel when you accidentally cut yourself, or something different?

Worst part is you feel like the scar is itchy but it's actually numb.
Don't fear it, you're given painkillers and they wrap you up in a magic plaster. The pain is the last thing you're thinking about

Agree. I was too active too quickly, because I felt fine and wrongly assumed that I’d feel it, if I pushed it too far.

No I wouldn't describe it like that. The pain is not as bad as I expected. I would describe it as a tugging achey feeling. If I was sat/layed down then I didn't really have pain, it was only when I moved that it ached.

Oh that’s good to know that I can give myself a break by laying still.

Tugging, aching, 1,000 sit ups kind of pain. I think I’m a bit of a weakling though, I was in pain for 5 days. Not agony, but it was very painful.

Not awful, not great. Lying down is pretty much fine, it just gets incredibly uncomfortable/painful when you move.... you'll be fine 🙂

Aching pain in the wound area.

Worse when you move.

Then all your muscles hurt as you try not to hurt when you move so they all end up strained.

I was on strong pain meds for several weeks just to cope.

Took me about 4-6 months to be pain free.

I found it quite scary and painful for the first few days. You don't realise just how much you use your abs for everything until you've had them sliced open. Sitting and standing up were very challenging for the first few days and quite painful for the first few weeks. If you stay in hospital make sure you use all the functionality on the bed to raise and lower it, i.e. have the bed move you from lying down to a sitting position rather than relying on your abs to do the work, and lower the whole bed to the easiest height for you before you attempt to stand up. Having a breastfeeding pillow or a cushion you can press against your incision will help a lot. I'd also think about tying a scarf to the end of your bed which you can use as a rope or lever to help move yourself around.

Definitely take it easy for the first few weeks but make sure you are standing up and walking around a bit because it's really important for your circulation after surgery.

Otherwise I would advise getting some peppermint tea for trapped wind (your bowel gets disturbed during the surgery which can cause pockets of air to become trapped and after a day or so you'll probably start doing quite loud and painful farts) and some glycerine suppositories to help with the first few poos. Don't use them to make yourself go, just wait until you feel like you need to go and then take one to ease the passage so you don't have to strain or squeeze your abs at all.

Keep on top of pain meds. DO NOT let yourself be discharged with just paracetamol like me. I did not care for oramorph, preferred NSAIDs but I can't really take them.

Echo peppermint tea. The wind that came out of me on day +3 was honestly shocking.

If you're breastfeeding, the afterpains for me were 10000 times worse than the c section pain. They were like being winded in the scar site. They go after a couple of days.

My hospital made me take my dressing off before they would discharge me, most do today I think. So open wound. But it heals so fast!

I actually loved my C section. Amazing experience and recovery was much, much better than after a back to back 55 hour inducted labour with 3rd degree tear and 2 litre blood loss!!!!

My worst but was the itching when I couldn't feel it! My back hurt more than my stomach, but I think that's because I leant forward to move around, which then impacted my back. I set an alarm to remind me to take painkillers, and it wasn't as bad I thought, and I'm an absolute chicken when it comes to pain.

Really not bad if you keep on top of the paracetamol (I didn't take the codeine as DD was already too sleepy due to jaundice and I was told it would make her even more so). Couple times in the first week I laughed or pulled it slightly and that was like a sharp "ouch", but I only felt it was actually properly painful the second day when I was due to be discharged and had missed the pain meds!

I honestly felt pretty good after two weeks. Obviously you might have a different experience, but I felt a lot better a lot sooner than other mums I knew who had years during vaginal births.

I’m currently day 4 post C section.

day 1 no pain as can’t feel anything still numb
day 2 feel like I needed to hold my belly when walking heavy feeling
day 3 tummy pains but this was more due to no bowel movement in 6 days. By the afternoon I had BM and this helped with the pain.
day 4. No pain had my bandage removed today and felt sore for the first 3 hours but that was more mind over matter

advice - stay on top of meds day 2 I didn’t take the pain killer the hospital gave me and I was in agony
getting in and out of bed is the worse part of it all.
i had to sleep sitting up like the hospital bed due to tummy pains and back ache due to the spinal. The last 2 nights I’m lying flat.
Dont over do it, its major surgery and if your wound opens it will set you back.

Achy and tugging

shooting pains when you do something stupid like try to move up the bed unaided 😅

by day 5-6 the worst is done.
I was doing 10k steps not running!!! 3 weeks post surgery

I went into labour ahead of one of my csections and was in labour for 4 hours… I can categorically state if I had my time over I’d still have had 2 x ELCS

It’s like when you rip a plaster off, that kind of pain.
It’s things like bending down to put underwear and comfy joggers on that hurts.
Anything across the wound is very uncomfortable so when you advised to get big knickers, that’s why. They come above the wound. I used disposable knickers for a week or so because you can rip them at the side, you don’t have to bend down at all.

painkillers are good, very effective.
I was on them for about 10 days. (just paracetamol after about day 7)
But then I was home within 24 hours of my section so got a good supply to go home with.

Do not sneeze, laugh or cough, or you'll know about it! 😩

Personally I found the c section pain wasn't too bad. More like a tight aching. Paracetamol was enough to manage throughout the day. I had a next to me for the baby on my side of the bed. That wasn't great because twisting is very painful and really hard to do when someone has torn your abs apart.
Two things that were worse though;
I had trapped wind in my shoulder, sweet baby jesus that was way worse! Apparently peppermint tea helps which I didn't know at the time.
Terrifying the first time you need to poo. You'll feel like the stitches will burst open (they won't) plus the spinal blocker tends to bung you up.

@Lijay same. Night one with second baby, second section I called for a midwife in buzzer. She came in a little shocked as I had been for a shower and no issues. I was hysterical about my shoulder.

She said to me what do you think it is. I said I've been shot

Perhaps the other drugs had not worn off as quickly as I and they had thought 😂

Honestly for me, it was absolutely fine. It was a bit weird and itchy and numb feeling but not particularly painful at any point. I was up and about and feeling pretty normal later the same day, albeit a bit steadier than usual.. which was good as no midwives ever bloody came when I pressed the buzzer 😂

First 24 hrs regular paracetamol and ibuprofen, then a couple of days paracetamol only. Normal activity from day 3. Weird numb itchiness around the scar is very annoying for several years.

Keep on top of pain meds and it will be fine. Don’t do any quick movements in first couple of weeks, that gave me searing pain but it’s only because I was stupid. Take it easy and you’ll forget all about it in a month or two!

I found it far more painful than my VB but I was stupidly expecting no pain and I only got paracetamol, was discharged the next morning. Close friend is a surgeon & she said listen to the advice and really don’t push yourself even if you feel fine as there are layers to heal internally.

Deep ache for me. It’s not pleasant but it’s manageable, especially if you keep on top of the painkillers (and get decent ones for the first few days). I had a bad ear infection once that burst my eardrum and that was 10x more painful than c section recovery.

The hardest bit for me was that I just couldn’t engage my abs at all. I did a postnatal Pilates video which helped a lot with that

Don't remember it being particularly painful.

Was weirdly unsettling to see the scar, frankensteinish with ugly stitches kind of like barbed wire, and one side gaped a bit as it healed which was gross. It was an emergency cs so I hadn't geared myself up for it, but even so I found it more disturbing than I anticipated. It's just odd to see a big stitched up wound on yourself.

Very odd not being able to get up easily, you use abs more than you'd think! I remember feeling kind of unbalanced as I walked. But not for long.

The constipation is real, dried fruit, tons of water etc.

If you can give birth do that. The recovery is so much quicker and less painful in my experience. If you have to have the section don't wait for the pain relief to wear off completely ask for more just before it's due. Mine wore off before I asked and my god is was in agony

A deep achey feeling. Definitely manageable on regular (set alarms!) paracetamol and ibuprofen. But getting up took some effort. Sneezing, coughing, laughing (i.e. any sudden movement) caused some pain, but it was never too bad. Don't stay laid down or sat still for too long at a time, as you stiffen up and it can hurt more.