An acquaintance told me that it took her 6 months to recover after each of her pregnancies. Besides the fatigue, how long did it take you to recover from giving birth? I mean physical symptoms -soreness, tears healing, physical strength returning… Did you suffer from incontinence or hemorrhoids or other side effects and did they eventually go away or did you just learn to live with them?
This depends very, very much on the length of your labor (minor importance), the precipitous nature of the actual birth itself (very important), and the competence and skill of your provider in recognizing and repairing tears afterwards. Tears which are appropriately diagnosed and competently repaired-- even 4th degree tears, done in conjunction with a general surgeon under general anesthesia-- will heal within a month in a young, healthy, non-diabetic woman. If a tear is misdiagnosed and not sutured when it should be, or sutured superficially when it should have been repaired in layers, then you will have problems afterwards, including incontinence, pain with intercourse, and even bad problems like fistulae (abnormal connections between things that shouldn’t be connected, like your vagina and your rectum). The only way to make sure a good job has been done is for your provider to immediately perform a full speculum exam once the placenta is delivered, with a bright light, to examine the cervix, vagina and perineum.
Hemorrhoids are far more common during pregnancy than afterwards, because the uterus sits on the veins which bring blood back to the heart from the legs/ pelvis and causes back flow. Hemorrhoids are nothing more than big engorged veins. Once the obstruction (baby!) is removed, they usually reverse themselves.
6 months is too long to feel normal again. For most women with normal, uncomplicated births-- even with significant tearing, as longer as it was properly repaired-- things are ok within 6wks to 3 months.
Personally, I had a very long labor (40 hours) and very precipitous birth (requested vacuum delivery due to anatomical problems with my baby’s cord and his presentation), but only second degree tearing. I felt perfectly normal by about ten weeks afterwards, but was very tender for the first two weeks.
6 months does seem a little extreme. I had a c-section after 23 hours of labor, and a very traumatic experience (epidural didn’t work, had to be knocked out for my surgery) and it took me approximately 3 weeks to start feeling normal again. It took about 8 weeks for me to feel comfortable exercising though. I only needed the pain meds they gave me the first week after leaving the hospital, after that Advil was enough to manage. I think it also has something to do with age and physical condition too, I was young and in moderately good shape so I bounced back more quickly. A friend of mine who was probably 75+ pounds overweight when she got pregnant had a very difficult time healing and her c-section incision got infected and she was in and out of the hospital after having her baby.
I never had hemorrhoids or tearing (obviously, c-section) but I do notice now that my bladder isn’t as “responsive” as it used to be. I don’t have that “gotta go” feeling until my bladder is so full it hurts. Which I’m sure is some nerve damage somewhere. But then again, my experience was way more traumatic than the usual delivery.
I had to be cut as I began tearing so I had stitches. I waited longer than suggested before having sex after baby.
I had no hemmoroids or incontinence at all.
My physical healing was over in a couple of months, but emotionally I think 6 months is about how long it took me to feel totally back to normal & comfortable with my baby, my body, ect.
So for me, healing took much less time, but 6 months is when things started to feel easier for me. Maybe your friend meant it that way?
Also, my best friend went to a carnival the [name]DAY[/name] after giving birth- walking around & going on rides. Meanwhile my mother terrified me by telling me she would have pain sometimes YEARS after giving birth in the area she was cut & incontinence problems close to 30 years later!! So it can go in any way I suppose!!
Thanks for all the info this will help me decide if I need to go back to mt ob/gyn & look into this again! Your deliveries sound horrible, and yet the body wonderfully recovers even from such trauma.
Technically, I’m fine, especially when I’m only doing light housework & baby care. But, when I walk the dog in the snow (which for you sun-berries, is right now similar to walking on sand dunes since it’s warmish & melting), I get very, very achy in places I’ve never ached before, even when pregnant. I was in pretty good health & shape prior to giving birth & labour was not so long (8.5 hrs), though my water broke 30 hrs before labour started (I was being followed by a midwife, which is why that was allowed to happen). I’m also older than most women giving birth to their first child. Women my age are more likely to be having their last child of 3 or 4, not their first.
[name]Do[/name] you know if a doctor can tell after the fact if a tear was properly stitched up?
6 months sounds a little [name]OTT[/name] to me too. I would definitely say that I was a mixture of emotions after giving birth. I had a natural birth with just gas and air, and a relatively average length labour at 16 hours. When [name]Amelie[/name] was born, I was very tender and sore “down there”. [name]Even[/name] sitting up straight or standing hurt for a week or so. But I was so besotted by her that I struggled through.
My midwife told me during my labour not to over exert myself for the first week or two. She said most new moms want to do everything for their baby - which is natural. But not to be afraid to accept help because our bodies have just gone through quite a traumatic procedure and we need to recover from that too.
I think it took about 12-16 weeks for myself to feel completely normal. I don’t think there is any standard recovery time - [name]Every[/name] mom, baby and birth will be different and this will reflect in the amount of time it takes mom to recover 
I had 3 natural births with only a local for the epeziotomy, any other small tears healed on their own. My first labor was 10 hours long, my second and third were only about 3 hours long. I breast fed my babies and so the healing process was extremely natural and quick. Physical healing was totally complete for me within 3 weeks. However, the weepies continued on for several months. I am fortunate to have a good husband and family that helped out a lot. Hopefully, things go just as smoothly for this next birth!
After the fact, if someone else did it, it can be difficult. Especially if the provider closed the top layer-- the mucosa-- but not the muscles (which is a common error among non-MD providers); the surface on speculum exam would look healed & closed, but the problem would lie underneath. It’s only if problems arise suggestive of non-union of the musculature that one would begin to suspect a poor suturing job.
After about a month I felt pretty normal. I had a terrible 3rd degree tear, and the recovery was rough, but after two weeks I was off of pain meds and moving around like normal.
Sexually though things took much longer. As I said, I tore really badly, so we didn’t even try for about 5 months, but when we did I was [name]WAY[/name] too tight for things to work out. I ended up needing to get granulation (I think that’s what they called it) tissue removed from my scar (internal) twice and got a prescription for a cream they give to menopausal women to kind of elastize the area. By 8 months or so things we’re great, and sex was better than ever.
I did have a lot of damage from my difficult labor (and probably lot of bad genetic luck too) to my internal organs. My bladder took a beating and the ligament that holds the urethra up is pretty much gone. They’re doing surgery after my next is born to fix it, so yeah I have stress incontinence. It’s only when I exercise, so I don’t for now. I can’t wait to get it fixed. I did physical therapy for this which was awkward, but my pc muscles are crazy strong now, but I still need the surgery. This probably isn’t something to worry about though. I think it’s rare for one pregnancy/birth to cause this. I’m just lucky lol.
As for hemorrhoids. I got them internally, and it’s still an issue sometimes. I can’t see or feel them though, so it’s not that big of a deal.
Wow, my issues seem quite benign now! Thanks for all the feedback. It’s good to be told (even though you kind of knoe/expect it anyway) that things do eventually go back to normal most of the time, even if there are some bumps along the road.
Thanks for the medical info [name]Blade[/name]. It actually was an MD that stitched me uo 'cause I was transferred to the hospital with a fever. But I think I’ll mention the suturing issue possibility next time I see my ob.
I had to get a couple stitches from tearing, but I felt fine after about 2 or 3 weeks, and back to normal (other than still having super huge boobs) in about 5.
mimimommy–that sounds awful, but I guess “worse than the birth itself” covers that. I’m just very glad to hear things went so much better the second time around.