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C-sections
A few tips.. Add yours!!
I just had my c-section about 3 weeks ago.. and I have thought of a few things I wish I'd known (maybe if this board had been here?) So I thought I'd share.. anyone else please feel free to add yours!
1) Things to have when you come home:
A bottle of ibuprofren
some clean pairs of DH's underwear (or just large Men's underwear.. boxer briefs worked for me)
clean cloth diapers/wash rags/ linen
Stool softeners
I was overweight with a belly pre-pregnancy & I found that rolling up a thin cloth diaper, (purchased to be a burp cloth) and putting it under my "belly fold" over my incision was so much easier than using a maxi-pad like they showed me in the hospital. A baby's wash cloth also works.
I also found that wearing DH's underwear for the first few weeks really helped me. His underwear were longer so I could pull them up higher & not worry about them rubbing my incision. Also they hold those jumbo maxipads way better than fitted women's underwear.
Keep taking the stool softeners at home. Don't put yourself through torture.
2) Things not to do:
Don't try to entertain guests, or stand up & cook dinner & clean house when you first get home. I did this, and I wound up in the hospital for a fever.. the fever was not from infection or any other cause except my body telling me to slow down & take it easy! You will eventually feel better!! Every day I feel a little better so I do a little more.. but seriously let someone help you with dishes & laundry for the first few days/ weeks. If you need people to go, tell them to GO.
Don't think your question is a stupid question.. call your Dr or Pediatrician if you need to! I probably could have avoided going to the hospital if I had called my OB the day before. I wasn't feeling quite right & they could have told me what to do before I wound up with a fever & chills.. instead, I had to call as an emergency and was sent to the ER when DD was 11 days old.
Don't be completely isolated: Have at least one person who you can talk to.. your partner, friend, family member. If I didn't have someone to talk to I would have gone nuts by now. 24 hours a day of sleep, eat, poop, cry a little, repeat is all my life has consisted of (for myself & the baby!!). Every now and then I just need to take a few minutes for me & call a friend to chat. Have your "person".
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Re: A few tips.. Add yours!!
Things to have when you come home:
Ditto the stool softener..works wonders for the first few weeks
I alternated ibuprofen with acetominaphin
higher waisted underwear, dresses or high waisted pants
Thinner 'nighttime' pads (I ditched the huge ones they gave me in the hospital as soon as I came home
Things not to do:
Try to stay awake all day...sleep when baby sleeps
House work..forget about it or have someone else worry about it. Don't overdo it period. It will delay your healing. That being said, keep moving around the house as much as you can.
When laughing or coughing push a pillow across the incision site - the outside pressure made such a huge difference.
Even when you're feeling good, don't over do it. I made this mistake and couldn't move the next day if my life depended on it. It's better to take it easy for longer than you think than to have set backs.
Before - read the Mayo Guide to Pregnancy's c-section chapter. It describes what will happen, and why, perfectly.
Clothing wise, just wear anything you got, so long as it will not hit your bikini line or a couple inches above.
Be careful of what you eat the first few days home. There is nothing like hurling your guts out right after a C-Section.
Tip for before surgery:
My hospital provided pretty much everything we needed so dont over pack your bag.
Tips for directly after surgery:
Follow all directions for what to drink and how to drink it. The only liquids they gave me with meals was Sprite. So I took a few sips. I regretted that later. Dont drink anything carbonated, no ice, only sip out of a cup. The gas pain is not worth it.
Sit up as soon as possible.
Stand up as soon as possible
Walk as soon as possible
Tip for aftercare:
We took as many of those padded panties home with us as we could fit in our bag. I wore them for as long as I could.
Besides all the other tips, send DH to the store to pick up some Gas-X. My gas pains were worse than surgery pains. I hardly took any pain meds, but needed that GasX badly.
I have had 3 scheduled c-sections and it actually gets easier every time - at least for me it did. I have many tricks I have learned, but these are the ones off the top of my head at the moment.
To help you poop in the hospital after your c-section, have the nurse bring you warm prune juice and alternate with hot mint tea. Works like a charm
As soon a the catheter is out, just get up. It is hard, but mind over matter. Take walks with your baby in their rolling bassinet twice daily in the hospital. You will shuffle like a grandma the first few times, but it gets easier each time and will help begin your healing faster.
Don't overdo it. After a week or two, you will feel like you are healed. You are not. If you do too much, you will hinder your healing and regress.
If you only have one baby, sleep when the baby sle eps. If you have more than one, have someone you trust watch your older child(ren) for a couple of hours and then sleep when the baby sleeps.
Tuck's pads or any form of wipes with witch hazel. My incision was closed with stitches and then steri strips that were to stay on until they fell off themselves. I had an allergic reaction to the adhesive on them which caused me to break out in what they called "tape blisters" they itched so bad. The one thing that helped me with the intense itching was the witch hazel pads over my incision.
Also using sterl gauze pads between underwear and incision helped a lot too with catching on my stitches.
For the first few nights and week or so at home sleep on an incline. It is so much easier to get in and out of bed.
Take stool softeners for the first few weeks after you c-section even after you have your first BM. Believe me you wont regret it.
Get Granny Panties for after, the higher up they go the better. Wear loose clothing, maternity yoga pants were my favorite.
And get sleep, sleep when baby sleeps. If you can get extra help. Have someone come and take care of baby so you can get an extra nap in. The extra sleep will help you get your groove back much quicker.
I agree with all the above tips.
Stay up on your pain meds for the first few days home. It's no fun having your vicodin run out and you're too sore to sit up, reach over and take another.
Tucks Pads
Stool softeners
Suppositories and KY Jelly
In case you haven't noticted my biggest problem was constipation
Buy disposable plates and silverware. Trust me, the last think you will want ot do are dishes.
Yoga pants work great
Use your fists and the heels of your feet t o sit up in bed and try your best not to use your stomach muscles
Ditto to everyones. Its very good advice. The only thing I think I would add is to get out of bed as soo as you can. I didn't and I ended up with mucous in my lungs that I had to cough up the day after the CS. That was fun, let me tell you....
Also keep up on the pain meds, getting out of bed/off the couch to get your meds after they have worn off is uncomfortable.
Big Like!
The nurses told me that hot tea with lots of sugar helps break up the gas bubbles. They kept giving me very weak tea with 3-5 sugars in it. They would fill the cup with hot water, add the sugar and dunk the tea bag in for only a few seconds..just enough to get the water a little brown.
I never took a single stool softener. Drink your water!
Do keep up with your pain meds.
I wore granny panties, yoga pants and nursing tanks for weeks.
Rest. You will think you feel fine until it is too late. Then you will crash. You should not be lifting anything except for your baby. You really shouldn't do anything except take care of yourself and your LO. Get someone to take care of you and the house (your DH, a friend, your mom, etc.).
Drink some more water. Seriously.
The most important thing is to park your butt on the couch when you get home and do NOT lift a finger. There is a permanent indentation of my rear on our couch because I didn't leave it for 2 weeks and my recovery was as smooth as you can get. Try to have all the essentials within arms reach - water bottle, phone, breast pump, nursing pillow, lanolin, burp cloths, medication, hand lotion, etc.
I will respectfully disagree with the PPs regarding pain pills. I don't recommend taking them any longer than necessary, depending on how they affect you. Vicodin made me severely constipated and no amount of stool softeners, water or broccoli helped. The first BM (5 days pp!) was worse than any other pain I experienced. The second one the following day was even worse.
I think it's really hard to give universal advice on what to do, because everyone is different, everyone recovers differently, and everyone handles pain differently. I've read all of the posts before mine, and disagree with some of them and agree with others. Honestly, you just won't know how you're going to feel or what's going to work for you until you're there.
I will say the one thing I think everyone should do: Drink a lot of water and then drink some more water.
I'll ditto the Gas-X and lots of water, as well as bringing home a bunch of the granny mesh panties. I'll also admit, that when thrown in the washing machine in a "delicates" bag, they can be washed and worn, repeat a few times. I still bled a LOT for almost two weeks before it slowed down and I mainly wore those lovely things for comfort and to not care if they got gross and had to be thrown out! My nurses were great at the hospital and made sure I had like two bags of the mega maxipads as well to take home (to supplement what we had at home) so that DH didn't have to go running out for more any time soon!
Something no one warned me about -- the amount of fluid that they pumped into me during my c/s. My legs, feet, and ankles were swollen twice as big as they were at any point during my pregnancy. They stayed that way for about 10 days! My doctor's office had me sleeping with my feet elevated to try and drain some of the excess fluid back. The skin was so stretched that it felt like it would rip open when I moved!
They arrived at 36 weeks after PTL and bedrest for 14 weeks.
OMG so trying this...i bought some thinking I would need them for my delivery as I had no issues with my daughter and had her normal, but this go around had to have a csection after 18 hours of labor....went to the doc yesterday for the rash that is killing me more than my incision! doc told me to put coritsone cream on it which doees nothing...gonna try the tucks!
Ditto PPs on the Gas-X. I read a few books and constantly bumped but I had no idea I would get trapped gas in my back/shoulder blades. I had no incision pain but the gas in my back was excruciating!
Something no one has mentioned... Firm pillows. Our bed is pretty soft and we have thin memory foam pillows, I really needed some that were firm to help me sit up more in bed. It was painful to have to sit up from being so reclined (again, mostly from the gas zingers!), so we got some firm bed pillows about 8 days PP. I wish I had had them immediately, they made a huge difference.
Mostly, be smart. If you are starting to feel tired, rest. And, no seriously, sleep when the baby sleeps, even if it is 20 mins or you don't officially fall asleep, the horizontal laying time will help. Everyone else can GTFU.