6 Ways Your Body Changes After Childbirth

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Mark Wealth

Now that your baby is finally here, your body will undergo another round of upsets no one may have warned you about. Find 6 likely ones to expect and what to do below.

1. Falling Follicles

According to experts, everybody loses about 100 hair follicles daily. During pregnancy, this daily quota reduces. However, for some, their hair growth actually increases. After childbirth, the body tries to make up for this, so, you may see that you’re losing handfuls of hair.

Mothers who experienced more hair growth will also lose those extra facial hair and a reduction in hair growth.

What to do? Relax and take care of yourself. The fall-off will stop and normalize after a few months.

2. Skin Scare

During pregnancy, some don’t experience any skin changes but others have a breakout of acne. Those who didn’t have acne during pregnancy may have their ‘acne season’ after childbirth.

In addition, stretchmarks start to get lighter and dark facial patches called Chloasma become lighter and disappear altogether.

What to do? Nothing much. Try and stay out of the sun if you can, eat healthy and worry less about those stretch marks. Meanwhile, see helpful tips on improving the appearance of stretch marks here.

3. Uterus Fuss

Your uterus which had expanded in size and weight starts to shrink a few minutes after birth. According to www.babycenter.com, contractions cause the uterus to clench itself like a fist, separates the placenta from the uterine wall and gives you cramps known as afterpains.

What to do? Relax and exercise regularly. Of course, you should report any symptom you feel worried about, if any, during your post-natal appointments.

4. Water Weight

I’m sure you can’t wait to shed all that weight you gained during pregnancy. Well, some pounds will be lost during childbirth as baby and amniotic fluids are taken out.

Your body will also produce a lot of urine in the days after childbirth and you may also perspire a lot. These will result in further drop in body weight as these fluids are ejected.

What to do? Let Toni Braxton’s song be your soundtrack: just let it flow.

5. Numb Bladder

Still on the matter of ejecting body fluids, some women may find it hard to urinate after childbirth. The thing is, your bladder suffers some bruising during labour and delivery. As a result, it becomes swollen and loses sensitivity.

Apart from the bruise and swelling, remember that the bladder is working overtime to produce urine. Couple this with bladder insensitivity, your bladder may often become too full causing more uterus cramps (afterpains) and difficulty in peeing.

What to do? Let the nurse know what’s happening and try to urinate frequently even when you don’t feel like it.

6. Vaginally Speaking…

We can’t talk about postnatal body changes without mentioning the vagina. If you gave birth vaginally, your vagina will expectedly remain a little larger, swollen and bruised.

Vaginal discharge called lochia will also be experienced. Lochia consists of blood, bacteria and tissue from the walls of the uterus.

You may also find that your vagina is dry during intercourse. This is because of low levels of estrogen caused by breastfeeding.

What to do? Vaginal size, swelling and bruises reduce over a few days. Assuming there was no complications during delivery, there’s nothing to worry about here.

Regular Kegel exercises will help restore vagina muscle tone. Read more about Kegel exercises here.

Dryness can be taken care of with water-based lubricants when you want to have intercourse. Intercourse should be between 4 and 6 weeks after delivery, though your vagina may still be tender and may hurt easily.

Vaginal discharge usually reduces and changes colour over the next two to four weeks after delivery.

Remember to inform your doctor about any upset you feel concerned about.