By Bonnie Schiedel May 9, Giving birth is deeply awesome, but giving yourself the tools and time to restore your nutrient levels, hormones, muscles and everything else is going to affect how you experience the early days of motherhood.
Thyroid hormones, which help regulate body temperature, metabolism and organ function, can be affected by giving birth, too. Symptoms can include insomnia, anxiety, rapid heart rate, fatigue, weight loss and irritability one to four months after birth or fatigue, weight gain, constipation, dry skin and depression four to eight months after birth. Your doctor can monitor your thyroid levels with blood tests and prescribe medication if necessary.
Check this out: In one small study in New Haven, Conn. Seriously, how cool is this? During pregnancy, your body makes a hormone called relaxin, which makes all of your joints looser. It can take up to five months for joints to return to their earlier stability, so stick to lower-impact exercise if your joints are sore. Relaxin combined with weight gain during pregnancy may make your feet slightly bigger and your arches a bit flatter, sometimes permanently. Your hips may stay wider, too.
Vitamin and mineral levels Feeling shaky and exhausted is pretty common in the first few weeks after delivery hello, multiple wake ups every night , but these symptoms can also be linked to low iron levels. Plus, eat iron-rich foods, such as red meat, fortified whole-grain products, beans, lentils and leafy greens. You should feel better within a couple of weeks of boosting your iron intake, but more severe deficiencies indicated by shortness of breath, pale skin, dizziness, a swollen tongue, cold hands and feet or cravings to eat non-food items like ice cubes may take longer to sort out.
You can ask your doctor to order a blood test to check your iron levels. Those bras you bought when you were pregnant? Right after giving birth, estrogen and progesterone levels drop, and prolactin, the hormone that helps you make breastmilk, kicks in. This change usually makes your breasts even bigger than they were during pregnancy, because of increased blood flow and milk, and yes, this is the engorgement your friends warned you about.
It peaks two to three days after birth, and your breasts will be pretty hard and sore. Applying warm packs before breastfeeding and cold packs afterwards, as well as taking a mild anti-inflammatory such as ibuprofen, which is safe during breastfeeding , expressing a bit of milk in the shower or tucking a clean, slightly crushed cabbage leaf against your breast all help, says CJ Blennerhassett, a Toronto midwife.
As for your eventual after-pregnancy boob size—who knows? Your breasts could stay bigger, get smaller or revert to their pre-pregnancy size. While recovery from a vaginal delivery versus a C-section will pose different challenges , there are also many similarities: Afterpains, which feel like menstrual cramps, begin shortly after you deliver and last for two or three days.
These contractions help your uterus start to shrink to its pre-baby state. Over about six weeks, your uterus contracts to its original size, eventually lowering itself behind the pubic bone.
Is it shame? Fear of freaking out other women? Something else? I recently had the honor of chatting with Aviva Romm, MD , about some of my most pressing questions, like how hormones are altered in postpartum, how long it takes your system to reregulate, how to handle postpartum depression and anxiety, and ways to support yourself during this period.
And that maybe, as a culture, we can try to understand the necessity of honoring that. AR The postpartum hormone drop is considered the single largest sudden hormone change in the shortest amount of time for any human being, at any point of their life cycle. During pregnancy, our estrogen and progesterone increase to [the] level of something like taking a hundred birth-control pills a day.
Estrogen and progesterone are going from so escalated to normal that it can cause huge emotional changes. But then your oxytocin goes up. That should ideally make us feel pretty well and happy, but it has to be enough to counterbalance that huge drop. Even in the best of circumstances, most of us are losing sleep, experiencing new anxiety and concerns over our baby, and making a whole lot of internal emotional adjustments.
EL Are there other things a woman can do to support her body to heal during postpartum besides having the physical support of people around? AR Definitely. Sleep banking is the idea that if you pre-sleep, you can store reserves of energy. How can you do this? So we tend to not catch up on sleep, and we tend to not sleep bank. That 40 minutes of sleep can make a huge difference in your healing and your life! AR Making sure that your diet is really spot-on, never letting yourself skip meals or let your blood sugar drop.
Each meal should contain good protein and good-quality fats. Keeping that blood sugar steady can keep your moods steady, help you sleep better, keep your energy up, and also help you keep your metabolism healthy so you can lose that baby weight, too. EL Why do some women continue to gain weight postbirth and while breastfeeding, or have trouble losing baby weight? AR I look for a couple of underlying causes. Number one is fatigue, which does two things: It raises our cortisol, which can make us hold weight, and both fatigue and elevated cortisol in turn make us crave — and eat — more sugar and more carbs, which can actually make us more tired in the long run and not lose weight.
Next, and super important, is hypothyroidism. EL All labor is intense, but does the length or strenuousness of labor have an impact on your hormones and healing? AR Not necessarily. I would say if you have a complication in labor, that could make it harder. Prolactin levels typically begin to drop around the 4 — 6-month mark, which is also associated with a natural decrease in breast milk production during this time. If you have been overwhelmed lately, just remember:.
If you or your family have a history of depression, you may be at a higher risk for developing postpartum depression. Medela is here for you every step of the way. One of the ways that we support our breast milk feeding moms is through a variety of carefully curated and helpful resources. Join our diverse community of fellow moms on Facebook to connect with others on their unique breast milk feeding journey. For more pressing questions, you can always reach out privately or directly connect to a lactation expert for answers to all your nursing and pumping concerns.
Remember — our resources and support network are here for you! Medela Family Products. Breastfeeding Guide.
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