The Tribune

By BIANCA CARTER

New moms often face many challenges just after giving birth. Every birth journey is different, but all of them are challenging, exhausting and involve some sort of recovery time.

A woman’s body has gone through a natural, albeit traumatic experience after birth, and her body has literally changed. There will be some time needed for her to feel like herself again, and that all starts with allowing the body to heal.

Here are a few things to keep in mind while recovering after birth:

• If you’re lucky enough to have support, this will be the time that you will need it, and don’t feel ashamed to ask for it. Someone that is available to help you with basic things like food and cleaning will be a huge help. If you have a toddler, getting someone to occupy them for a couple of hours will give you more time to rest and focus on the new baby.

• Depending on if you had a C-section or an episiotomy, your stitches will need to heal. Most C-sections are done with the dissolvable stitches, and initially you may not be allowed to get them wet. The episiotomy wound typically benefits from warm baths with Epsom salts or another sitz bath formula.

• It’s important to take care of your body by eating proper healthy food. Most moms that are breastfeeding will still get pangs of hunger from time to time, so it’s very important not to neglect your needs as well. You’re not eating to nourish your baby growing inside of you anymore, but if you’re breastfeeding, the quality of your milk can be affected with what you eat. Your body will take whatever nutrients from your body that it needs in order to take care of the baby which means that it can leave you depleted, so its super important to eat healthy. It’s also a good idea to keep taking your prenatal vitamins.

• Rest is important physically, mentally and emotionally. Your body will do its healing when you are resting. It’s challenging to get sleep when taking care of a newborn, so give yourself as much time as you can to rest when the baby is sleeping. The other tasks can wait.

Little by little, your body will heal, and you will feel significant changes as the days pass. The recovery time is different for everyone, so be patient, and give yourself all that you need to get back to your pre-baby self.

Love and hugs!

• Bianca Carter is a certified lactation counsellor and founder of Bun in the Oven.

For more information, email her at info@babybunintheoven.com. Follow BITO on Facebook at babybunintheoven, and check out the BITO Blog every Monday and Thursday at http://babybunintheoven.com.