Giving birth to that wonderful and beautiful screaming bundle of joy is something that every woman will remember and live with for the rest of her life. There is nothing more satisfying than making a whole new human being from scratch.
We hate to break your baby bubble but it’s not all flowers and butterflies. Your body will change after giving birth and it’s not all in a good way. Having that beautiful baby will have its toll on your body, especially your V!
During pregnancy, the placenta will produce high amounts of estrogen that aids in the proper development of the baby in your uterus.
These high amounts of estrogen and other hormones such as progesterone will give you that wonderful pregnancy glow. After you give birth, the amount of estrogen causes menopausal like symptoms such as losing hair, vaginal loosening and is also responsible for making you a hormonal mess. Some of the physical changes that giving birth causes, includes:
Falling out of hair
Just a few weeks after giving birth, you might notice that you are losing a ton of hair like a cancer patient, don’t panic, it’s all normal. While you are pregnant, your body makes you glow and makes your hair thick and beautiful. That’s because the pregnancy hormones in your body prevents you from shedding your hair. On average, a non-pregnant woman loses 100 hairs a day. After giving birth, your body will compensate for all the hair that it did not shed by shedding double time. This process will continue for about six months and then it will return to its normal growth cycle.
Skin changes
During pregnancy, you might notice that there are some changes in your skin. There’s a dark line in your belly, and some tanning around the eyes or what they call as the “mask of pregnancy”.
All of these will slowly fade away. You could however, experience extreme dryness of your skin that could cause some red rashes around your mouth and chin.
Breasts
After giving birth to your baby, you might feel that your breasts will get bigger and engorged with milk. You might also experience your breasts becoming swollen, flushed and sore. There could also be some leaking. When you decided to wean of your baby, your body will also stop producing milk, which would cause your breasts to shrink back and sag.
Stomach
That baby bumped that you have been taking care of for months will sadly not go away right after giving birth. Your uterus will still be hard and round and a bit heavy. It could weigh up to 2 ½ pounds and will gradually shrink in about 6 weeks postpartum.
Back Pain
Due to that adorable baby bump that your now adorable baby caused, your stomach will become stretched and your abdominal muscles weak. Your body will work overtime in order to make those muscles strong again, which in turn could cause back pain. The back pain could also be due to months of a having that huge bump in front of you which causes your back to work extra hard to pull it back.
Incontinence
Your pelvic muscles are the ones that keep everything in tact down there. It’s the group of muscles that helps you control your bladder. It’s also the one that took all the weight of carrying that baby, amniotic fluid and enlarged uterus for months, not to mention all those extra punches and kicks that your little baby threw in there.
All of these, plus the fact that it got stretched so much to accommodate the baby during delivery, will cause your pelvic muscles to give up and get weak, causing urinary incontinence.
Constipation and hemorrhoids
Carrying the weight of your baby causes a stress on everything down there, especially to your vagina and anus. Having haemorrhoids is one of the most common conditions that post partum mothers go through. This along with the episiotomy will make defecation painful and could leave to constipation.
Vaginal pain and discharge
Right after giving birth your vagina will be swollen and painful, especially if it’s your first baby and the doctor had to give you an episiotomy. Next will come the vaginal discharge that will persist for weeks. Vaginal discharges are the body’s way of flushing out all the blood and uterine lining that build up while you are pregnant.
Vaginal loosening
During delivery, your vaginal canal will stretch so much in order to accommodate the safe delivery of your baby. Just like a rubberband, it will stretch so much that it will have a hard time snapping back.
This will cause you to have a loose vagina, decrease in sensation during sex and decrease in libido. Sure, you have your baby, but this could lead to bad sex that could cause a dent in your relationship with your partner.
How to heal fast after giving birth
Ice Pack
Right after giving birth, you should place some ice pack to your swelling and angry looking lady parts down there. It will help lessen the pain and decrease the swelling. You can put ice packs on your vaginal area for about 10-29 minutes. You could also do a cold compress to your swollen breasts and irritated nipples to ease the discomfort
Hot sitz bath
Doctors often recommend hot sitz bath for the swelling and haemorrhoids in your neither region. The hot water helps increase the blood flow to your vagina and helps shrink the hemmoroids. You could try sitting on the warm water at least 3x a day.
Taking Phytoestrogen
Phytoestrogen or the estrogen from plants has been proven and tested to help women recover fast after giving birth. It gives the body the estrogen that it needs. Phytoestrogen restores the vaginal elasticity which helps you get back to your original tightness before you gave birth.
