Functional Fourth Trimester
Functional fourth trimester is a podcast series for new parents- covering common postpartum challenges, practical strategies, and featuring conversations with parents and healthcare professionals.
Functional Fourth Trimester
C-Section Recovery: What to Expect Beyond the Hospital
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Have you been discharged from the hospital after a c-section with no idea what to do or expect? On this episode, we talk with mom and occupational therapist Kristy all about her experience having 3 c-sections. We discuss the biggest challenges, the emotional impact, and what you can do to help your body heal.
Link to blog post: https://www.functionalfourthtrimester.com/blog
Welcome to Functional Fourth Trimester, a podcast created to support new parents as they return to daily life after having a baby.
SPEAKER_02Each episode will talk through common postpartum challenges, share practical education and strategies, and hear from real parents and healthcare professionals along the way.
SPEAKER_00Whether you're listening during a feeding, a walk, or a quiet moment, this space is for you. I'm Lauren.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Melissa, and we're excited to jump right into today's topic.
SPEAKER_00A C-section is often labeled as the easy way out, but the reality of recovery is anything but easy. No one really prepares you for the physical pain, emotional ups and downs, and unexpected challenges that come with healing after a c-section. Today we're talking all about what healing after a C-section truly looks like.
SPEAKER_02I'm happy to introduce our guest for today's episode, Christy. She's an occupational therapist and she's joining us all the way from Australia. She is the founder of OT in the Motherhood, a new business that's dedicated to supporting women after the full spectrum of motherhood. She also hosts a podcast called C-section Support. Christy believes that a well-prepared mother is a more competent mother, and that women who give birth via C-section deserve far more support than they typically receive. Welcome, Christy.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Hello.
SPEAKER_00Yes, thank you so much for joining us today. We are glad you are here. I would love to kind of just start off with if you want to walk us through like what your experience was like, was it expected, kind of just what that whole process was like for your personal experience.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sure. So I've had three C-sections now. Um for my youngest child, he's almost one. Um, so first one was yeah, seven years ago. Um, when I was pregnant with my first daughter, um I was actually referred to the um like maternal fetal medicine team at one of the hospitals here. And I found out at 15 weeks pregnant that I would need a C-section and that all of my children would need to be born by C-section. Yeah, that was hard to process for a little while. I was definitely disappointed that I wouldn't get a chance at having a vaginal birth. At the same time, I was grateful that it was obviously the best for my health and for my baby's health. Yeah, so it was good in a way to having that um knowledge so early on in my pregnancy. It meant that I could have so much um support set up. Like my husband, um, we were very fortunate. My husband had at least six weeks off work for each of the births of my um our children. And it also meant that I could educate myself um a little bit. Like I read the hospital booklets in advance about like you know, post-surgical precautions, what was involved. Um, we went to an education session at the hospital. Yeah, so we felt prepared as we possibly could be, but at the same time, afterwards, I was like, oh wow, there's so much that I didn't know. And I think to an extent, you know, you can't fully prepare yourself for such like a major surgery. Um, and obviously it's not just surgery, you've got a new baby, you're learning to breastfeed, you've got all the hormones, um, you're figuring out baby sleep and everything. It was, yeah, it was quite overwhelming in in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, definitely. I'm curious, like what in particular was the most unexpected kind of thing that you ran into?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so for my first daughter, my mobility um was affected, which I expected, but it was expected more than I thought. Like I actually had trouble with um my transfers. So getting up and down from the couch, I could do it, but I needed two hands to help me. So there's no way I could do that while also holding my baby. I also couldn't lean over and put her in the bassinet at home. And also getting in and out of bed, even though I knew how to do it the best way possible, it was still hard. And I basically avoided it as much as possible. And then even just walking around the house, I was sort of a little bit hunched, like very slowly walking. Yeah, so it kind of shocked me from that perspective. And I had um I also had back pain to begin with just for the first few days. Um, which in hindsight makes sense, like your whole center of gravity changes once your baby is born and your ab muscles obviously affected after surgery. But yeah, it was just unexpected. But actually, for my second baby, I was more mobile, which was interesting. I'm not 100% sure why. I think part of it was, I think my recovery was partly better because even though my husband was around to help my older daughter at that time, I still was moving around and walking around the house quite a lot. You know, I still had lots of time to rest in between, but I definitely maintained that mobility, which I think helped. And in terms of my first daughter, when my mobility was sort of affected, I had a lot of trouble breastfeeding. So I was expressing, and then we were um finger feeding or SNS feeding to begin with, which actually helped in a way because it meant I could express, then my husband could be the one um to get up and down with my daughter, and I didn't have to do that, or he could, you know, hand me her to feed with the the bottle or the finger feeding. Yeah. So we kind of managed that that okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So could you explain what you mean by finger feeding?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sure. So yeah, I was expressing, um, and then um we put the milk in a bottle, and then there was a little tube that we had going from in the bottle, okay, um, and then we put it like next to our finger, and then my daughter would suck on my finger with the tube next to it. So it's instead of um introducing a bottle, and then when she was a bit older, we did use a bottle, but we also transitioned back to breastfeeding.
SPEAKER_00That's cool. I haven't actually heard of that, so that's super interesting. I like hearing that. I'm curious in what ways, like having a C-section, do you feel like it impacted your postpartum experience?
SPEAKER_01Part of it was just even like emotionally after I had my daughter, it was right on summer, and not many of my friends had babies yet. And, you know, the the guidelines are you shouldn't go swimming for six weeks, um, or you know, in a bath or anything either. And I mean, not that I was in a state that I was going to be going to the beach or anything, but I think that did affect me in a little way. You know, we didn't socialize as much during that initial period. Although, to be honest, part of that was just postpartum in general. Like I said, I had difficulties breastfeeding, and I actually was in hospital again when my daughter was four weeks old because I had um mastitis, so not C-section related, but um, yeah, so that was quite a longer transition back to like normal life than what I expected.
SPEAKER_02I know in the beginning you talked about processing the fact that you are going to have to have a C-section, you know, like we can envision our birth and what we want it to look like, and we can come up with these plans, and things like this will come into play. And you obviously you knew in advance, so you could process this ahead of time. Um other moms they might not know until they get to the hospital, right? So, what are there things that like that you did during that period of time that helped you accept and process this change and go from what you were envisioning to now what it would be like?
SPEAKER_01I think a little of it was um education and just being informed of the process and what recovery would look like as much as possible. Obviously, when people have an emergency C-section, they they can't do that to the same extent. But I think it's still important anyone can have a C-section, right? You can plan as much as you want, you can plan for a home birth and everything, and it can still be necessary. So I think it is important that um women do know like what will happen, what to expect actually at the hospital if that's required, and also what will happen afterwards in terms of like those post-surgical um precautions, what they can and can't do for a while afterwards, and have you know, have a plan A, but then have a plan B and a plan C for what support they can access in advance, and having that support, like knowing like if they're gonna have a dual art, like who are they? Have they met them already? Um, do they have the contact details? Because after you have your baby, I was in like no state to be, you know, thinking about things, planning things, researching things. Um, and part of the thing is there isn't a whole lot of information out there about how to recover afterwards. Um, now I know so many women um who have had C-sections, and some of them were planned, some of them weren't planned. Um, and so many of them didn't get any information after their birth about how to recover. Um, and then there can be that risk of people doing either one um one side where they're not really doing anything and they're lying in bed and they're resting a lot and they're not getting that mobility, or they're doing everything and they're like picking up the kid and like, oh, I did that, I was I was fine. Yeah, and we don't we don't want that either. Like there's an in the comfortable in the middle, which will um vary on the person to basically, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And even too, like the logistics about like how to take care of your wound and your scar now and like exactly all of those just like logistical things that I feel like you shouldn't have to be trying to figure out when you're sleep deprived, trying to care for your newborn.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And scar massage is is important, but I wasn't told to massage my scar after my daughter.
SPEAKER_02I think maybe I was gonna ask you that if that was something they actually taught you or no, because I don't think it's common to teach, but it is important.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I think maybe after my second or third, I was told, yes, you should massage my scar, but as in terms of like how and when and what that looks like, because for a lot of women it it can feel really icky, like um, you know, there's reduced sensation around your skin. I had this um part of my skin, like the size of a coin, like maybe about five centimetres above the actual scar that I couldn't feel. And I that happened for a couple of months, and I knew why and I knew what to do, but that can be just really like a bit scary, I guess, for some women who's like, why is that happening? Like, what do I do about it? Is that just going to be like that forever now? Like any wound you've got anywhere in your body, if you have a cut through it, they they're cutting through nerves as well. So that does take time to repair. Um, and you can get sort of altered sensations. So it's not necessarily fully numb. It can feel like um a bit, I don't know, icky is the best word that I can. I can't, I don't know how to describe it, just feels a bit weird. And as those nerves regrow and repair, then that sensation can go back to normal. But what can help is like desensitizing those areas. So um touching those areas, tapping, you can use like cotton wool, things like that, and bit but gradually, I guess, training those nerves back to um what they should be so that they can feel normal again. But it can take months sometimes for that sort of fulfilling to come back.
SPEAKER_00I know we've talked like you talked a little bit about mobility being a challenge. Was there anything that was like particularly challenging during you know, either one of your recoveries?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So, like I mentioned, I had heaps of support from my husband. He was he wasn't working. So he basically took over like the laundry and the cooking. Um as I got better, um, especially the second or third time when I already had kids at home, I would start by doing things like packing the lunch boxes. So things that wouldn't take too long, um, they didn't have to bend much. I would, you know, I wasn't picking up heavy pans from in the cupboard and reaching out, that sort of thing. Um, and then like with laundry, I would be putting the clothes away, but I wouldn't be carrying the heavy laundry basket. So I'd gradually sort of go back into those normal tasks that I used to do. The other thing I was going to say is um looking after my kids as well, because I obviously knew each time. So the second and third time um we knew in advance. So like I instead of sort of picking up my child leading up to the um to the birth, I would start um getting them used to like getting cuddles on the couch, or um instead of lifting them up onto the change table, I would use pull-up nappies, for example. Or um I we taught my son how to climb into the car seat himself. Like we're in a in a um, we have a four-wheel drive, so it is quite high. Um, so he was able to do that. So we're sort of able to adapt how our kids did things and how we did those parenting tasks so that it was gonna be easier on me.
SPEAKER_02It sounds like you guys did a really great job with thinking ahead. And I feel like great things that a mom, if she knows that this is gonna happen, or maybe she just had a C-section, um, you can't do the planning ahead with the kids like you did, where you you're in transitioning and lifting them, so it doesn't go all of a sudden you bring a brand new baby home and you're like, I can't pick you up, I can't pick you up. And it just feels like a lot to them. They're used to like let's cuddle here, you crawl up here by yourself, or like here's how you know, like you've already brought on that transition in advance, and I think that's so valuable. And you know, even if you're you're not having a C-section, you know, like moms that had a vaginal birth, they still need to be, you know, mindful of their bodies and take care of themselves. So I feel like that's something that any family could take into preparing for baby two, baby three, whatever it might be, to help their other children transition in a way that they don't really know that that's what you're doing. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think just education in general, postpartum, in terms of um the woman's function. There's so much emphasis on the baby, as it should be at the same time. But um I do think mums tend to neglect themselves sometimes, but also that information is often not readily available in terms of how to best look after themselves and to heal the the best possible as well.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. That was one of the things that I feel like we had in mind with like creating this whole podcast is it's like we want, like, yes, the baby is such an important part, obviously, but we don't want new moms to neglect their own healing. Their healing is gonna impact, you know, things later down the road. It's gonna impact their ability to care for their child. So like it's all intertwined.
SPEAKER_02Earlier you were talking about that educating yourself was what you found to be the most helpful. You mentioned getting to know the hospital and kind of what it looks like in terms of C-section there. If there were moms listening to this that are like, how do you like where do I start with educating myself? Yes, they can learn about the hospital and what it looks like, but are there other resources that you feel like are very valuable?
SPEAKER_01Well, I think one thing is um start with the hospital, like looking online, they might have some written education about C-section birth and recovery. Um, I know my hospital does. Um, so quick Google search should be able to hopefully find that, have a read of that. Obviously, the process for every hospital is slightly different. Um, but just also being aware when they're looking online um who they're getting that information from, because there's a lot of, I guess, sometimes like influencers who might be like, okay, this is this was the process for me, this is what happened, and that's fine, that can be helpful, but it's not necessarily going to be the same. Each hospital will have different procedures. Also, that information is not necessarily going to be accurate. Obviously, we want evidence-based information, especially when it comes to recovery and what you can and can't do. So there are definitely some sources better than others.
SPEAKER_00And I would love to to hear like a little bit more about your business and like what kind of things you're doing. I know, like I know you have the podcast, and you do you just do episodes about C-section specifically? Is that also what your business is centered around?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I'm at the very start of setting up. Um, I mean, I I did start my podcast a while ago and then it went on pause unplanned for a few reasons. Um, but I am planning to start that up again in the next week or so. And then I'm also planning some digital products, basically, information that people can access about C-section. Um, so the preparation and the recovery. Um, I don't have a website yet. It is in process, but I've sent you my Instagram so people can come follow me there, and then um I'll update that um as I go along. One one thing I'll tell you that I didn't know is, you know, they say rest after surgery, which makes sense. Um, after my daughter, I thought I was resting a lot, like I spent a lot of time on the couch feeding and then like, you know, being nap-trapped with her sleeping on me. And then it wasn't until I think my second that I realized that um with rest, really, you should be horizontal like horizontal rest. So lying down in bed um at least once a day for at least an hour or so is actually what you really need to be doing. Obviously, um rest and and not overdoing it from a physical point of view as well, but lying down is actually best for your pelvic floor and for healing. Um and so something so simple, I just didn't know for my first. Um, so yeah, for my second and third, I was able to sort of put that into my daily routine, make sure I I laid down for for a while each day.
SPEAKER_00I love that. I feel like I would think similar, like, oh, I'm sitting on the couch, I'm resting. Yeah. But yeah, you make a good point about like really to get kind of the tension, the relief, like the tension off of your pelvic floor horizontal is is gonna do that more than if you're sitting up instead of just like sitting on everything and kind of crunched over. I feel like typically when I'm on the couch, I'm like kind of hunched over, and so you're probably like squashed in your core and that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And even from a scar perspective, um, lengthening out that wound so that it's not healing like all scrunched up, as you say. You want it to lengthen so that you do have that mobility um through that scar tissue and that and that movement um going forward. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I love too, it seems like a big kind of theme of a lot of what we've been talking about in terms of postpartum and recovering from a C-section is like in the OT world, what we could talk about, like energy conservation. And so just like finding a way to do things that aren't gonna increase your pain, that aren't gonna fatigue you at the point where you can't do the rest of your task throughout the day. Um you bring up a good point, especially when you've got other kids running around the house. And you're like, you still have to last all day long with these kids. Yeah. And so finding ways to do things that are not gonna, you know, flare up your pain and just drain all your energy. Um and still keeping like the precautions and the safety. Um, I think that's that's great.
SPEAKER_01And that can be hard. Like even with that knowledge of you know, conserving your energy and how to do that, it can be hard mentally. Like as I've started feeling better, um, you know, I was used to, especially second and third, used to being a mom busy doing all the things. And so I'd kind of want to get back to doing that and do things fast. And often it was my husband being like, you need to slow down, or like, no, I'm gonna do that. And I'd be like, no, I'm fine. But I'd still like know that no, actually, you're right. I need to slow down and just take things easy because the last thing you want to do is um yeah, compromise that healing and and be worse off for it.
SPEAKER_00Yes, definitely. As someone who also runs at 100 miles an hour, I feel like I would struggle with that too. I'd be like, I just want to get back to my daily life. Yeah. Especially too, like, like you said, swimming. Like if you're if there's things you can't do that you really enjoy and really like, which getting back to those could help with like mental health concerns and all those kinds of things. So you're almost like limited and away from that as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, getting that um that balance, that that leisure time back in those activities, yeah, you might have to adapt how you do things for a while.
SPEAKER_02I feel like you've provided a lot of great value throughout, like even from helping your children kind of prepare for you having a c-section when you know, to learning about the hospital, to sharing, you know, kind of the things that you learned that you needed to do. So I'm kind of wondering if there's anything else that you would think this is what I would tell a mom if she knew she was having a C-section, and this is what I would tell a mom if she just had one and she's now back home. What would be your biggest of advice?
SPEAKER_01I think from an emotional point of view, knowing that whatever you feel is valid, you know, especially those women who ended up with emergency C section and potentially a bit blindsided, you know, happy that their baby's safe, but they're allowed to feel grief about not getting the vaginal birth or disappointed. You know, you can some people be like, oh, you know, at least the babies are safe. Like, yeah, but it's not just that. Like your mental health matters and your feelings matter. So that's okay to feel those things. And if um, it can be a really good idea to talk to someone about those feelings as well. But also if again. From a physical point of view, recovery starts from day one, really, and and rehab. Um, you don't need to wait, it's not like do nothing and then six weeks and then do everything. There's um you there's things that you can do from day one to help with that recovery and you just gradually build build from there.
SPEAKER_00I think that's so awesome and such a good point. It's like you don't have to just wait till six weeks, like great, you're cleared, cleared to exercise, go for it, and you're like still having all this pain potentially, and maybe your mobility is still decreased. Um, so I think it's so important. And too, like I know we talk a lot about like the earlier you can kind of start healing and recovery, the better it will be down the road. Like if you wait weeks and weeks and weeks, it might take even longer then to kind of get back to what you feel like is your normal kind of baseline.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And there is that balance. Obviously, um, you want to get that mobility back, but you don't want to overdo it. And in saying that, like there's guidelines for healing and what you can and can't do at certain time frames, but that's obviously going to be slightly different for each individual person. I mean, I've had three C-sections, and each was the actual experience itself was slightly different, and then the recovery was um different. I still had the same amount of support, still the same house with the same furniture and same setup and everything. Um, but my experience was different. So don't compare your experience directly to your friend or someone else and think like, oh, like I'm not healing as quickly or um, you know, so much better than how they're doing or whatever. Like it's you're on your own journey.
SPEAKER_02I love how you said you're on your own journey, and I think that's really important for us to remember in the whole motherhood journey. We all process differently, we all recover differently, our bodies are different, um, babies are different, and so comparison can become a really big challenge. So really focusing on your journey and what you need to do in working with whoever you're working with, your healthcare professionals, whoever it is, to just focus on you and not compare. I think that's so I love that you said that.
SPEAKER_00I wanted to thank our guest speaker, Christy, for joining us today, all the way from Australia, to talk about her experience with C-section recovery. In the description to this episode, I will put the link to our blog post, which will have Christy's information and her companies, as well as some other additional resources for any parents who are looking to get more information on this topic. Thank you all so much for joining us today, and we can't wait to talk with you again next time.
SPEAKER_02I hope today's conversation gave you something practical to take into your day or simply remind you that what you're experiencing is normal. Returning to daily life after birth is a process, and support matters.
SPEAKER_00However, your day continues from here, be gentle with yourself. You're doing important work. Thanks for listening. We'll meet you back here next time.