Giving birth, is such a magical moment, it’s the time when you finally get to meet the baby that has been kicking your guts and sleeping on your bladder for months. In order for the baby to be safely delivered if you opt for natural delivery, your vagina will stretch so much that there will definitely be changes down there. Here are things on what to expect and what happens to your vagina after giving birth.
You might have seen it movies that pregnant women just randomly pop their bag of water and then a 3-month-old looking baby just pops out with ease. Well, that’s a bit too far from reality.
The cervix, which is the one that separates the uterus and vaginal canal and also acts as the gatekeeper that keeps the baby in the womb will slowly open to prepare you for child birth. There’s also a mucous plug that keeps the baby in. As the cervix dilates and thins out, that plug will fall off.
The uterus will then contract steadily as it tries to help push the baby out into the world. It’s your uterus’ way of evicting your baby. At that point of your delivery, your uterus may feel rock hard as it contracts. Your doctor will instruct you to push as the strongest contraction in order to help the baby out of your womb.
Your baby will then pass through your birth canal, also known as the vagina and he is out into the world. The doctor may also give you an episiotomy if your opening is not big enough. After your baby and placenta are out, your hooha will then get stitches for the episiotomy. Since the trauma of childbirth to the vaginal canal is extensive, your V will feel swollen sore and feel like you have just pushed a watermelon out of it.
Normally, the vagina’s diameter is only 2.1 to 3.5 cm and stretches during sex. Why you give birth, the average diameter of a baby’s head is around 11 cm. Of course giving birth will drastically change you down there!
You will have a wider vagina
Pushing that baby out of your birthing canal will no doubt stretch it out so much that it will have a hard time snapping back into its original tightness. A few days after giving birth, your vagina will feel swollen, painful, looser, softer and more open. The swelling, pain and openness of your vagina will go away after a few days. Sadly, you won’t magically snap back into your pre-birth tightness. It will take a lot of exercise, time a some medical help in order to keep you from being loose.
Another horrible reality that comes with giving birth is urinary incontinence. It’s not uncommon for new moms to leak after giving birth, whenever they laugh or sneeze, there will be some leaking down there. This is because of the weakened pelvic muscles.
The pelvic floor muscles are the ones taking care of your muscle tone down there, from controlling your pee to controlling your grip during sex and even keeping your poop in. During the 9 months that you have carried your baby, it will act as a support to your amniotic fluid placenta and baby. As you give birth, it will also make way for the safe delivery. Now all those hard work for months will take its toll on your pelvic mucles, it could leave them tired and inefficient for keeping your pee in and from doing their job.
Vaginal Dryness
Another thing that happens to your vagina after giving birth is the horrible dryness down there. This is because of the when you give birth, the levels of estrogen on you system also goes down the drain.
Estrogen is the one that is responsible for your vaginal health and keeps it tight, moist and healthy. When there is no estrogen, you can also expect vaginal dryness and vaginal loosening. This will make sex uncomfortable and painful.
Soreness and perineal stitches
During your delivery, you can expect your doctor to do an incision in between your vagina and anus. This area is called the perineum. The perineal area is cut in order to accommodate the safe delivery of your baby and to avoid tearing you from your V to your V. After the baby and placenta has been delivered, the doctor will then stitch you up down there.
You will also feel painful and sore down there and will persist for at least 6-12 weeks. Always make sure that your vaginal and perineal area is clean to avoid infection. Wash it regularly and change your sanitary pads as soon as you need to. Also make sure to take a bath regularly to keep everything clean and infection free.
Pain during sex
Because of everything that happens to your vagina after giving birth, sex might not be on your list of things to do for a while. You have lady parts that are throbbing with pain and you have a screaming brand new baby. In case you get through it and manage to have sex with your partner, there might be pain during the first time you try to revive your sex life.
Just remember to ease into it and not rush into things. Severe pain during sex after giving birth maybe your body telling you that you are not ready for this yet and things down there need more time to heal.
What to do to recover fast after giving birth
Giving birth drastically changes everything down there. Sure, it’s all worth it for the sake of your healthy baby, but being a mother shouldn’t be the end of your love and sex life. Remember that you are a woman first before a mother. It’s not right to just accept the things that happens to your vagina after giving birth, you can still do some things about it to regain your sex life!
Kegels Exercise
Kegels exercise is one of the most helpful exercises that could help new moms recover after giving birth. It might help you heal, but the process is so slow.
In order to do kegels you can:
- Visualize the muscles that you use for urinating
- Squeeze those muscles in
- Hold it in for 10 seconds then relax, repeat for 10 cycles.
- Repeat for at least six times a day.
Phytoestogen
Most of the time the reason why all this horrible things happen to your vagina after giving birth is because your body does not have enough estrogen to properly heal your sexual organs. Estrogen is the one that keeps the vagina tight, lubricated and healthy. It’s also the one that helps heal and maintain the health of your sexual organs. Naturally, without estrogen, there will be nothing to maintain the health of your sexual organs and you will experience vaginal loosening and dryness.
As long as you are done breastfeeding, you can start taking Phytoestrogen to kick start the healing process of your sexual organs. Phytoestrogen are estrogen that are naturally made by plants. What it does is that it replenishes the body the estrogen that it needs in order to heal fast and restore the tightness and tone that you once had before you gave birth.
You have to remember that not all estrogen are the same, some, like soy, do not have enough phytoestrogen to actually make a difference in the body. Luckily, you can still take herbal supplements with high quality Kacip Fatimah, such as Vagifirm. Kacip Fatimah is an herb that has been used by women for ages to help them heal fast. What it does is that it heals you from within, especially your vagina, giving it the tone and tightness that you had before giving birth.
Conclusion
Having a baby is a wonderful thing to experience, what happens to your vagina after giving birth is not. Days and even years after giving birth to your baby will make it feel like your vagina has been to war with something traumatic. It could ruin your sex life and your relationship. The good thing is that you can still do something about it, you can do kegels exercise and take high quality phytoestrogen from Kacip Fatimah to bring back the romance in your life!
Also Read: How to Help Women Recover Faster After Giving Birth
