Another woman utterly failed by our society’s devaluation of women’s reproductive health.
We can’t wait around for male doctors to decide what we need to know.
This is why we need to take control and educate ourselves about our own bodies.
and here’s some comments i saw under the post. why is this a pattern?? why is this a recurring theme?? why is this information not common knowledge? what the fuck are doctors doing??
This is news to me so let’s share it so people will know!
Gross tmi: but i passed a pretty big clot after having my daughter. It was about the size of a baseball. It actually hurt worse because while 15 hours of labor opened my cervix, i passed the clot in 30 minutes. I knew it was a possibility because of my midwife and reading, but everyone Ive told after this (mostly other pregnant women) were shocked that this could happen.
In our culture, it’s much more common to do deep research about what family cars we want to buy than we do about childbirth when we ’re pregnant.
Tmi: I passed a huge clot after birth in the bathroom of my hospital room and called the nurse sobbing because I didn’t know it was normal. She treated me like an idiot, but NO ONE told me it was a possibility. And the pain associated with healing for the first couple of weeks after birth was worse than the labor imo. Again, I had no idea. They didn’t tell me a thing besides “sitz bath regularly and change your pads.” Before discharging me from the hospital.
I was most definitely told about this in school. Fucking hell, 4-6 weeks of bleeding? My periods were/are bad enough, why the hell don’t we get told this?
I didn’t know it could last so long, wtf? Is the bleeding inevitable after birth?
Yes, the bleeding is normal and inevitable. It’s called “lochia”, and it’s basically your body healing up from birth: When the placenta detaches from your uterus, it leaves open a bunch of blood vessels that it had been connected to. As your uterus contracts and shrinks, those blood vessels close up and stop bleeding. Plus, your uterus needs to shed all the lining it built up during pregnancy, because it doesn’t need it anymore.
Usually the bleeding only lasts for a couple weeks, at most, and usually it doesn’t hurt – you’re probably more sore from labor/delivery anyway., and any stitches or incisions you might have gotten through that. Big, painful clots, like other posters are talking about, are not the norm. Usually the bleeding is not that big a deal, especially after what you just went through! But if it does last longer than a few weeks, or if it lightens up and then gets heavy again, or if you’re passing painful clots, then you should see a doctor/midwife.
Not to mention, sometimes the vagina itself tears during childbirth, or the skin isn’t stretching like it should and doctors will make an incision to allow the baby to come out.
