A cesarean birth may have not been your plan. If you did not have a scheduled cesarean, likely, this is an unexpected postpartum experience for you. We usually plan our birth for a vaginal birth: you probably even have all the postpartum care items prepped for recovering from a vaginal birth.
But, what happens if the unexpected does with a cesarean birth? You still deserve to be supported in your healing after birth! It can be overwhelming when you’re in pain to know what to even to do support your healing as you care for your newborn! You may not even have postpartum support items in your birth bag that are specific to c-section support!
Let’s explore a few ways to support your initial healing after a c-section.
But before we continue… If you’re looking for comprehensive and reliable childbirth education, we’ve got you covered.
Our Childbirth Education Course is designed by experts to provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate through pregnancy, labor, and delivery with confidence.
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Ok, let’s continue…
3 Tips to Support Your C-Section Recovery from Day 1
You do not need to wait until you are 6+ weeks postpartum and cleared by your medical provider to begin to focus on your rehabilitation after birth. We can start day 1!
But, how we start day 1 is not running to the gym or focusing on shrinking our waist (the latter is honestly never a focus of ours here at MamasteFit). Our main focus in these early days is to:
- Support your incision for comfort, especially with increased demand and movement
- Scar desensitization to support sensation at your scar site, including numbness and sensitivity
- GENTLE, gentle movement
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This mini-course guides you through the first month postpartum as you begin your recovery after birth! This program includes weekly guidance on how to reconnect with your core and pelvic to support your healing.
- Breathing and Core Connection Exercises
- Mobility Exercises to Relieve Common Discomforts
- Gentle Core Exercises
- Watch on Mobile Device
1) Support Your Incision Site
As your wound is healing, some gentle compression can aid in healing and provide some external support with increased demand.
The Bodily belly band is our favorite post-c-section supportive band! We gift this band to our c-section clients because of the positive feedback we have received from our clients.
When wearing a belly band:
- The band should provide gentle compression to aid in increased pressure with movement or sneezing/coughing/laughing
- The band should NOT be so tight that you cannot breathe or take a full inhale.
- The band should NOT be so tight that you feel increased pressure DOWN onto the pelvic floor.
Bonus: Try Splinting when Coughing, Laughing, or Sneezing! When suddenly increasing pressure, such as from sneezing, laughing, or coughing, place your hand or a soft object (such as a pillow) against your incision to apply counter pressure. This can decrease or alleviate pain at your incision site!
2) Scar Desensitization
Your scar will play a HUGE role in your function after birth, similar to other scars from surgeries. But this scar may be different for you emotionally.
Our tissue layers should glide smoothly over one another as we move. After the tissue has been damaged (in this case from a cesarean birth), they get sticky and can adhere to one another in the healing process.
This then causes there to be pulling or tugging at our incision site, which we may feel in our low back, lower abdomen, or even in other places in our body (remember we are a kinetic chain and things are connected throughout our body)!
Scar mobilization, where we move the tissue layers, can be incredibly helpful in breaking up the adhesions to allow the layers to glide more smoothly (and prevent that tugging sensation).
But before we can get to mobilization, we need to focus on scar desensitization! Scar desensitization is when we add different types of stimulus to “override” the receptors to reset. If you are experiencing numbness or sensitivity, scar desensitization can be really helpful in “resetting” this!
For scar desensitization, we want to touch AROUND the incision site during the early few weeks. Use different types of fabrics or materials to touch AROUND the incision (avoid hot or cold). Eventually, we can move closer to the incision site and add in mobilization.
If you want more of a walkthrough of HOW to approach supporting your scar’s healing and function, join our c-section scar mobilization course with live webinar!
3) Gentle, Gentle Movement
Movement is so important the first few weeks after a cesarean birth (as it is with all birth), but especially so after major abdominal surgery. We don’t necessarily want to go for a 10-mile walk, but we do want to move our bodies daily.
Some tips when approaching movement:
- Primarily off your feet, resting in bed the first 4-5 days postpartum
- Add in the movement about once an hour or so for a few minutes (get up and go to the bathroom, kitchen, etc)
- As you near the ten-day mark, start going for short walks outside (10-15 minutes)
- If you experience an increase in bleeding, decrease overall activity.
After you have been cleared around 6-10 weeks, you could join one of our postpartum fitness programs!
Another movement technique is to do gentle breathing! You can try a position that is most comfortable for you; some find a supine or slightly reclined position or side-lying feels best for them. In this position, you can focus on moving the rib cage and the belly gently!
If you want more, join our FREE early postpartum recovery course that can be done even after a cesarean birth. This course includes mobility and breath work to support your early postpartum healing.
Start Your Recovery After a C-Section Birth
Your birth can influence HOW you should approach recovery postpartum. After a cesarean birth, we need to approach our postpartum rehab with our incision healing in mind!
Our biggest tips are to focus on supporting your incision with external support, starting to touch the skin AROUND your scar, and adding in gentle movement.
You deserve to be supported in your postpartum as you navigate your motherhood journey.