Things you didn't realise about giving birth until after the fact?

[LizzeyBenett]

Have to say some of it was a surprise for me some things I didn't know about but sure did find out :

• haemorrhoids - not one person warned me about this makes total sense but ouch

•the stretch marks (down below) that one shocked me but I suppose what do I expect after pushing a baby out.

•the hot flushes for weeks after giving birth

Christ that sounds horrific. My first was episiotomy and had local anaesthetic for that. Second tear was so bad I was taken to theatre for a spinal block but it didn’t work as I could move my legs so they gave me a general anaesthetic. I feel pretty lucky now!

I didn't realise that Original Source Mint shower gel would be a terrible idea to use to wash my episiotomy carnage with, when I got out of the hospital.

Oh my fucking holy mother of god that must have stung like a thousand nettles.

😱😱😱😱😱

Haha oh yes, I stupidly took advice and bathed with Epsom salts 😆 🤬

Ouch

ELCS here -

I didn't realise that there would be so much vaginal bleeding after a section. I just honestly never even considered it and thought I was hemorrhaging 2 weeks later when it started coming out like a waterfall!!

I also didn't expect breastfeeding to be so hard at the beginning. My milk hadn't come in yet when I had the section and it took a couple of weeks for my supply to properly get to where it needed to be. I persevered and am happy I did but I'd just never considered that it wouldn't happen immediately.

I hadn't realised that after a section I'd have weeks of having to inject myself in the belly!

Why did you have to inject yourself, and with what?

I had 3 cs many moons ago now, but I never injected anything afterwards.

You usually have to inject yourself with blood thinners. My mum had to when she had my brother by c-section

Yes, I had to when I had DS by CS 12 years ago.

Oh!?
my last one was 13 yrs ago. Maybe that was a New development.
I just got ugly compression socks and a good luck.

I remember the socks! I remember looking grimly at my lower body and thinking ‘I’m too sexy for my compression socks’.

No idea when blood thinner self-injections post-CS were introduced as standard. I had DS in London in spring 2012.

@Regalia
oh god, the socks were just hideous.

Yes, I Wonder too when those injections started. I had my babies in North London (Barnes), Warwick and then Epsom. Not a whiff of injections anywhere.

But in Warwick they experimented with just giving out pain meds and hoping we’d sort ourselves out. The morphine went in a jiffy. Then I fell asleep and the pain when I woke up was awful. No morphine left, and they wouldn’t give me more (unsurprisingly 😬) and the paracetamol barely touched the sides of it.

Ah. Memories!

Also, the morphine killed off whatever was left of my sense of smell. I did not know that was a usual effect of morphine, no.

Mine was only in 2020 so no idea what year they introduced it but, yes, it's a blood thinner that you have to inject yourself with daily to prevent clotting

My brother was born in 2012. My dd was born six months later in 2013 which is why I remember it so well

Same here. My daughter was yelling her head off before she'd fully emerged!

That after pains were a thing. I genuinely thought I was in labour again, and they get worse after every baby too!

Yep 10 years of diastasis recti and all the physio under the sun. I now have to save 12 grand for it to be surgically fixed because the NHS don't recognise it. Despite hernias and the likelihood of more without it being fixed. They would if I was a man. But women give birth so they are meant to get on with it 🤷🏼‍♀️

Mine is the opposite of this. I expected my lochia to be so heavy that I bought giant incontinence pads and pants to soak up the blood.

Had a vaginal birth and there was barely any bleeding after. Basically a period-like bleed for about a week.

Everyone I've spoken to had more bleeding than me! It was a real shock - and I didn't use any of my giant pads, still have them.

Funny how everyone’s experience is so different but I hardly had any vaginal bleeding after my c-section. I was prepared for it with massive sanitary towels but there wasn’t any need for them.

I did find injecting myself in the stomach a bit difficult but my dh is even worse with needles than I am so needs must. I don’t mind being injected by other people at all but doing it to yourself is something else!

The weirdest, most horrible pain in my shoulder after a c-section. The nurse on night one had no clue about it. The physio explained it the next day.

‘C-section shoulder gas pain" refers to a common discomfort experienced after a cesarean delivery, where trapped gas in the abdomen can cause a sharp, shooting pain sensation in the shoulder area, often described as "referred pain" due to the irritation of the diaphragm muscle connected to the shoulder nerves; this is usually a temporary issue that can be managed by gentle movement and walking to help move the gas along’
The excruciating pain when the ‘drain’ was removed 🤦🏼‍♀️
How much I would bleed in the days after.
How painful breastfeeding is!
How I would fall in love in a way that I had never experienced before …

The sweating! I had a winter baby but oh my lord the raging sweats. Suddenly having to wear a nursing bra and breastfeeding pads overnight. I remember the first night at home waking up and there was just milk and sweat all over me and the bed.

The raging thirst whilst breastfeeding. Never known anything like it. I never fed without a massive sports bottle of water beside me, even a year later.

The nurse had no clue? That is absolutely disgraceful.
Referred shoulder pain is really common after any abdominal surgery including a section..
Very worrying that someone in the medical profession wouldn't know that.

The nurse at the time seemed totally disinterested in me or my phantom shoulder pain. She suggested it was probably being moved to a bed after the epidural and birth 🙄 She just wanted an undisturbed night shift I’m sure 😂

The finger up the bum when they check for tears! WTF!

i found the thing where they advise you to rub oil down there and stretch yourself to prepare for birth really grim. I couldn’t believe it when they advised me to do it. I couldn’t reach properly at that stage and didn’t like asking my dh to do it for me..