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

That you can poo in labour. Wasn't mentioned in NCT classes or NHS classes. It was 17yrs ago though so might have changed since.

That If you have two big babies and two forceps deliveries, you can have prolapses. Would have been really helpful for someone to have warned me about this!

I don't remember having post labour pains. I went straight to sleep after each delivery and still had the epidural and drip so assume this covered the pain!

That sounds like a Heavy Metal band.

That getting stiches hurts worse than the actual labour/pushing!
The BO that even the strongest antiperspirant is no match for.

That sometimes, for some women... it doesn't hurt.
And as you are walking, talking etc, they don't think you are in active labour...

Also... you know they say babies sleep a lot? Sleeping too much is a sign there's something wrong!

Wow I didn’t have any of the things mentioned on this thread and lots of it is total news to me despite having 2 kids so I obviously got off very lightly.

The thing that left me feeling really cheated though was that some women don’t lose the baby weight until after they stop breastfeeding - that happened to me both times. I felt like a whale and then lost almost a stone in the 2 weeks after stopping bf (when kids were 14 months and 18 months) each time.

Pethidine made me so sleepy I felt I missed the birth of my own son...it was like looking down the wrong end of a telescope- everything seemed so far away.

Plus it made him really sleepy, too.

Too sleepy to want to feed properly.

After pains are really intense contractions that can happen for days after giving birth. It's your uterus shrinking back to size. They are triggered when you breastfeed (which can be agony too if your nipples get sore and crack.)

The placenta. I didn't realise (was very young and very naive) and no films show it, why not?!

Night sweats, and that first wee 😬

Yes! What the heck is that thing! and so BIG!

No, I don't want to eat it, thanks, no matter how nutritious it is.

Although I believe female mammals sometimes eat theirs - [?]

That the birth wasn’t the end, it was the beginning. With my first my pregnancy was a massive thing for me, in both senses. Especially towards the last trimester I was hung up on the end of my pregnancy. It was a bit of a shock when I brought a baby home. So naïve 😂.

Yes anything to do with the placenta. How it looks, the size, how it sort of unexpectedly expels itself out after the injection and at the time, you just don't really care but afterwards you're like, wait that was weird!

How long lochia can last for and that you still get lochia after a csection.

The nipple paaainnn of breastfeeding in the first couple of weeks even if you/the baby don't have difficulty with it and the latch is good etc.

Sweaty legs at night! All the fluid coming out of your legs.

That I wouldn't feel that immediate rush of overwhelming love everyone talks about. No one tells you that not everyone experiences it.

I had a ELCS and while it was great in many ways I wonder if the clinical nature of it meant I didn't bond quickly. I felt for a few weeks like someone had just given me this random baby to look after

That I would have intrusive thoughts and dreams about hurting DS

Diastasis recti. I have never really gone back to how I was before and my core/pelvic floor is shot, especially now I'm older. The risk and the condition itself is not widely recognised and it can be soul destroying seeing others "snap back into shape" and hearing people say those who don't are lazy, have given up etc.

I'd heard peeing stung after but my god, I used to hold it for hours to avoid going to the toilet

Also had no idea about the after pains until i experienced them

Also frequently waking up frantically in the middle of the night dreaming that you'd accidentally forgot to put baby in the moses basket and had rolled on them in bed. Had never once co slept, but so many times I woke up thinking I'd left him in bed

1. The BO for the first few months

2. how much hair falls out of your head and then grows back so you have loads of annoying little hairs that are taking ages to be a normal length

3. how unwell morphine/dihydrocodeine make you. I was give this after my C-section and I was completely out of it, Andy also made me vomit which was terrifying when you've got a load of new stitches in your abdomen

4. the hyper-awareness that you have when you sleep - you will hear every tiny little movement, snuffle or breath that your baby makes for the next few months!

I wasn't expecting pain ! (Very young & naive.)

I can still recall the midwife at ante-natal classes telling us "we don't call them labour pains, they are contractions". Silly woman.

Fanny like a wizards sleeve... No amount of kegals is preventing or fixing that.

It's weird you say that, with my first I was convinced I had an infection in my stitches down there as despite showering regularly and changing pads often etc, I just felt like I smelt awful, midwife checked me and said everything is fine and I was like 'really?!', never seemed as bad with other DC but phew, it was gross, I never knew it was a thing 🤷🏻

I was baffled by this at the time. I managed to have a shower everyday and started having an extra wash, but I still had BO for a week or two after birth. If it wasn’t for Mumsnet I might never have realised this was a thing!

I had a C-section and I didn’t realise that parts of my abdomen would be left numb for a long time afterwards. I can’t remember how long it took to return to normal but it could have been a year or two.

I used to think, how difficult can breastfeeding be? It turned out that for me, it was very difficult indeed.

I knew that my hair might thin considerably about three months after the birth. I must have lost 40-50% of my hair over a few days. What I didn’t realise is that when it later grew back, I would have untidy tufts sticking out all over. I returned to work feeling like Worzel Gummidge.

For me it was how empty I'd feel. I remember a few weeks after birth just sitting and crying because my body felt so empty and alone.

Postpartum clumsiness and absentmindedness, it is a thing apparently. I thought it was just me bumping into and dropping things, forgetting things including my own name.

Bursting into tears at the news and soppy adverts, things on the tv that would have washed over me previously.

That you have to poo properly at the hospital after a C-section to make sure your bowels function properly.

I did not, and they did not. And in the end the pain of emptying my bowels after far too long was worse than trying to give birth to a baby that would not fit through my birth canal.
Emergency C-section whilst throwing up from the anasthesia was also a surprise.

Had a section on my first and natural on my second.. did not know i had to push out the placenta!!