Swimming after birth stitches

Getting active after the birth

Getting back to your previous level of fitness or starting new activities after you’ve had your baby has benefits for both of you.

Benefits of exercise

Even small amounts of regular activity can:

help you feel better and relieve stress
boost your energy
help strengthen and tone your tummy muscles
help you sleep better

You're also less likely to have the symptoms of depression if you keep active after the birth.

How your body changes during pregnancy

When you’re pregnant your body makes lots of changes to adjust to your growing baby:

Your abdominal muscles and pelvic floor stretch
The way you walk and stand changes
The stability of your joints is affected

These can affect how soon you can get back to being active. Having a caesarean section or complicated delivery will affect this too.

Good activities to start with

Your midwife or an obstetric physiotherapist will encourage you to start gently walking and give you some exercises to do soon after you’ve had your baby.

These exercises will help the muscles in your back and tummy to get stronger.

If you’ve had a healthy pregnancy and vaginal delivery, it’s safe to start doing these a few days after giving birth or as soon as you feel ready.

Pelvic floor exercises

Your midwife or an obstetric physiotherapist will also show you how to do pelvic floor exercises.

You should start doing these as soon as you can.

How to do pelvic floor exercises

If you’ve had a complicated pregnancy or birth

If you’ve had a more complicated pregnancy or birth, such as a caesarean section, tear or assisted delivery, you can start walking and doing pelvic floor and tummy muscle exercises when you feel ready.

If you’re not sure, ask your midwife, health visitor, obstetric physiotherapist or doctor for advice about getting active again. Your 6 or 8 week check is a good time to do this.

If you're breastfeeding

If you’re breastfeeding, wear a sports bra over your nursing bra for extra support and comfort.

It’s a good idea to feed your baby before exercise and it’s also important to stay well-hydrated.

Activity and exercise won’t affect the amount of milk you make if you’re breastfeeding.

How to start being active again

Start gradually at first. Begin with walking and take your baby out in their pram, buggy or sling.

Gradually build up to doing 30 minutes at least 5 days a week. It doesn’t need to be done in one go. You can do 3 lots of 10 minutes or 2 lots of 15 minutes if that works better for you.

A change of scene can often calm your baby if they’re crying and it can help you feel better too

Paths for All has more about the benefits of walking

Buggy Walks

In some areas parents get together for regular Buggy Walks run by Paths for All. These are a great way to get active and meet other parents.

Find a health walk in your area

Swimming

If you want to go swimming, you’ll need to wait until any discharge (lochia) has stopped and any stitches have healed.

This is likely to be from about 6 weeks onwards.

Jogging and aerobics

If you want to do a high-impact activity such as jogging or aerobics, wait until at least 3 to 6 months after giving birth. Any sooner could strain muscles in your back and pelvic floor.

Use ALISS to find ways to keep active in your area

Yoga and Pilates

Yoga and Pilates are good for building strong muscles and balance.

You can start these 6 to 8 weeks after birth.

Use ALISS to find yoga and Pilates classes in your area

Returning to regular sport or training

If you were doing regular sports or fitness training:

wait at least 6 weeks after birth before you start again, longer if there were complications
make sure you tell your instructor you’ve recently had a baby
make sure you rest before doing any activity, especially in the early days

Translations and alternative formats of this information are available from Public Health Scotland.

Quick Question – How soon can I swim after giving birth?

Welcome to the first post in my new series Just a Quick Question where I answer every day concerns, niggles and frequently asked health questions. I have a long list of things that people have asked me over the years and decided it would be helpful to put them all in one place on my blog.
Just a quick question … How soon can I go swimming after giving birth?
It’s not until you’re a post natal mum with a new baby that questions like this come up. Suddenly you start wondering if swimming is ok. Will swimming put you at risk of infection? Can you swim if you still have some light bleeding? Is it ok to swim if you have stitches? Is it alright to use a tampon for swimming after childbirth? All the advice seems to be about how soon it’s ok for your baby to swim but what about you?

Well, as usual, there’s no set time when it’s Ok for you to dive back into the pool. It depends on the type of delivery you had, any complications and how you feel in yourself. If you had a normal vaginal delivery and you didn’t tear, have to be cut (episiotomy) or require any stitches, then really you can swim as soon as your bleeding and discharge (also known as lochia) has totally stopped. This might take four to six weeks. It’s always best to make sure your pelvic floor and core muscles are strong again before you begin anything more than light exercise. In an ideal world you would see a women’s health physiotherapist to assess you as an individual and guide your return to exercise.

By the way, you should use sanitary towels and not tampons to soak up blood after giving birth because of a risk of infection.

If you did tear or had to have stitches, then you’ll need to wait until the wounds have fully healed up before you swim. You can check with your midwife or health visitor if you aren’t sure.

If you had a C-section then you’ll need to wait a little longer and at least until after your six-week check with your GP. Your wound needs to have healed up fully so if there’s a little weepy or oozy corner then you should hang on. Don’t rush, wait until you feel ready. Swimming is ideal to introduce from about 8 -12 weeks post partum.

When the time comes, don’t forget it’s always best to start back to exercise gradually. Try some walking in the water and very gentle swimming to see how you feel. You can build it up over a few weeks. Swimming is a great way to exercise after giving birth because it’s low impact and won’t put too much pressure on your pelvic floor which is weakened during pregnancy and in labour. The pool is a great place to find that much needed time to yourself too.

If you want to get back to more vigorous exercise then the advice is again to take it gradually. It’s vital to make sure that your pelvic floor muscles and core are fully strong again after pregnancy to protect you against urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse in the future. Here’s a link to an article by the expert physiotherapists who created the Return to Running Postnatal Guidelines which can be adapted for all types of exercise.

I hope that helps.
There are more answers to questions like these and lots of health information to help you lead a happy and active life in my book Sorted: The Active Woman’s Guide to Health.

Disclaimer: I can’t give personal medical advice and as always with health advice, reading something online doesn’t replace seeing your doctor who knows your medical history and can assess you in person. So, if you are unsure then always seek the opinion of a health care professional.
Featured image: Pexels at Pixabay

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Is it possible for a nursing mother to go swimming in the pool after childbirth

It is better to start getting back in shape after the birth of a child as soon as possible. Regular swimming in the pool is recommended by doctors as a gentle form of physical activity for a difficult postpartum period. But when returning to swimming training, there are a few important things to keep in mind.

Contents

1 When is the best time to start swimming
2 Swimming while breastfeeding
3 Swimming after CS

When is the best time to start swimming? Improving metabolic processes and strengthening immunity is also very important for the mother's body. For the tense period after childbirth, the calming effects of swimming and being in the aquatic environment also play a big role.

Swimming in the pool after childbirth can be started when the cervix is completely closed and the discharge (lochia) stops - this usually happens after 1-1.5 months. Before the first visit, it is necessary to undergo an examination by a gynecologist. If the birth was difficult, you will have to postpone any physical activity until your health is restored. In case of injuries and tears, do not swim in the pool until the seams are completely healed.

Swimming while breastfeeding in the first months after childbirth is not allowed. The process of establishing lactation often takes place with complications, and the mammary gland becomes extremely vulnerable to the effects of infection. Therefore, doctors recommend starting swimming with breastfeeding no earlier than 3-4 months after childbirth.

Features of swimming while breastfeeding

It is widely believed that it is better for a nursing mother not to go to the pool at all. Women fear that breast contact with chlorinated water may affect the quality of milk or cause painful irritation. Doctors refute these allegations - the penetration of water into the milk ducts is impossible, and the skin will be protected by a cream with a high percentage of fat, which must be applied at least half an hour before class. But swimming in a pool with breastfeeding can be dangerous for other reasons:

hypothermia - the body is weakened after childbirth, so there is a high probability of exacerbation of chronic diseases and infection with viruses;
flushes of milk - during training, it is impossible to feed on time, which leads to lactostasis and a high likelihood of developing an infection;
high loads on the chest muscles - can interfere with the establishment of lactation, increase the amount of lactic acid, which will lead to the child's refusal of milk;
inflammation of cracked nipples - the ingress of chlorinated water into the sores can cause irritation and delay the healing process.

All these negative consequences can be easily avoided if you follow the rules for visiting the pool while breastfeeding:

start training only after the final establishment of lactation - this should be determined by the attending physician, usually the process is completed by 3-4 months of the child;
in the lesson it is important to avoid exertion, keep a slow pace when swimming, perform only simple exercises;
it is better to train under the supervision of an instructor who will correctly regulate the intensity of classes and the increase in load;
it is necessary to refuse to visit the pool if you feel unwell, as well as if there is irritation on the skin of the chest or there are cracks in the nipples;
carry a milk pump with you or choose a sports center for classes that you can attend with babies - usually in this case the babies are supervised by the staff, the mother can, if necessary, interrupt the lesson to feed the baby;
after swimming, you need to thoroughly rinse with chlorinated water in the shower, but it is better not to use soap for the chest - it causes overdrying of the skin, which can also lead to cracks;
after a shower, do not dry your breasts with a hard towel, which can irritate your nipples; be sure to use moisturizers for the skin.

Going to the pool while breastfeeding is best in a gradual increase in load. The first classes should not last longer than 30 minutes, intense exercises are prohibited. The strengthening effect at the initial stage is provided by walking on the bottom of the pool, which is interspersed with short periods of relaxed swimming. For the postpartum period, water aerobics classes in special groups are well suited.

Swimming after CS

Water activities can help you recover faster after a caesarean section, but strenuous exercise will have to be forgotten for a long time. You can start swimming after CS only on the recommendation of a doctor who will determine the quality of suture healing, as well as the readiness of the body to increase stress. It is usually recommended to wait about six months after giving birth, but with good performance, you can start swimming earlier.

In the first sessions, it is better to try to avoid the load on the abdominal region, do not do exercises that affect the torso. It is better to focus on the legs and arms, doing warm-ups, walking and squats underwater. Such exercises will still have a strengthening effect on the abdominal muscles, and after a few workouts, the load can be increased. It is recommended for the first time to engage in postpartum swimming groups under the supervision of a doctor.

Stitches after childbirth: materials and technologies

Childbirth is a complex physiological process that affects many groups of muscles, tissues, and organs. For a woman, labor activity is associated with significant physical exertion and, unfortunately, does not always pass without undesirable consequences. Most often, obstetricians encounter tissue ruptures that require immediate and effective suturing.

Two types of materials are used for suturing:

self-absorbable and represented by catgut of animal origin or semi-synthetic threads;
non-absorbable threads based on silk or nylon.

The suture can be continuous, fixed only at the beginning and end of the incision, or consist of separate parts, each of which is secured with a knot.

Cervical and vaginal sutures

After delivery, the woman is examined immediately. If it has injuries, the tears are immediately sutured with natural or semi-synthetic threads, which dissolve on their own a few days after the operation.

As a rule, during the procedure on the cervix, the doctor does not need to perform additional anesthesia - the sensitivity of the tissues of the uterus is extremely low, and the patient does not experience pain. When treating vaginal tissue ruptures, local anesthesia is used or, in extreme cases, an injection is given for short-term general anesthesia.

During the recovery period, the stitches on the cervix do not cause concern, if the vagina is damaged, the woman experiences some soreness, which disappears after a few days. Special care for the seams and the area of their application is not required.

Perineal sutures

Perineal sutures are required if the perineum is damaged or artificially incised during labor. Violations of tissue integrity in this case may have varying degrees of severity and affect:

only the skin of the posterior commissure of the vagina;
not only the skin, but also the muscle tissue of the pelvic floor;
muscles and walls of the rectum.

If the rupture is large, the specialist performs an incision in the perineum, which subsequently facilitates tissue fusion and rehabilitation, as well as simplifies suturing. There are two methods for restoring the perineum after childbirth.

According to the first, the work is carried out in layers. First, the wall of the rectum is restored, then the muscles are sutured. Both stages are carried out using absorbable materials. Lastly, by means of synthetic threads impregnated with an anesthetic, the skin is connected.
In the second case, both skin and muscle tissue are sutured with one absorbable thread. A well-made suture is less painful during healing.

Perineal injury is more difficult and takes longer to heal than cervical or vaginal rupture. To alleviate the woman's condition and speed up the process, it is necessary to provide at least relative peace and effective protection against pathogenic microflora.

To do this, a woman must adhere to a sparing motor regimen and strictly observe the rules of hygiene. For 10 days, a woman in labor cannot sit, there are dietary restrictions. The sutures are removed 6-7 days after application in a maternity hospital or in a consultation.

Stitches after caesarean section

If a woman has a caesarean section, not only the uterus is damaged, but also many layers of soft tissues, which must be restored after the operation.

Depending on the caesarean section technique used, the incision on the label may be longitudinal or transverse. The tissues are connected using semi-synthetic threads, which disappear 70-120 days after the operation. This time is enough to restore the integrity of the uterus. For tissue splicing, a single-row or double-row continuous suture is used, or several separate sutures are applied.

Today, dissection of the uterus is more often accompanied by the imposition of special, absorbable brackets on the edges of the incision. This technique reduces the risks during surgery and simplifies the subsequent treatment of the wound. After suturing the uterus, they proceed to the restoration of muscles, tendons, abdominal cover and subcutaneous fatty tissue. The procedure is performed with absorbable material.

The choice of skin restoration method depends on which of the three methods of caesarean section is used in practice. Today physicians use:

lower median laparotomy, accompanied by a vertical incision from 12 to 15 cm long along the midline;
Joel-Cohen laparotomy with a transverse incision between the womb and umbilicus;
Pfannenstiel laparotomy with a transverse arcuate incision along the suprapubic skin fold.

The first days after the operation, the patient can and should move, while she must receive the necessary anesthesia.