New Mom's Guide to Your Body after Baby (The New Mom's Guides Book #1) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Besze Wallace Susan , M.D. Reed Monica

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55 pages

English

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New moms run into a host of new challenges once baby arrives, including getting back into shape, developing a parenting style, readjusting schedules, and interacting with their husbands in new ways. With compassion and humor--and always the privilege of motherhood in mind--The New Mom's Guides go straight to the heart of these matters, offering moms guidance and encouragement in this new season of life.Each of the four books in the series offers real advice from women who have been there, done that, and want other moms to benefit from their trials and triumphs. A perfect gift for baby showers, Mother's Day, or any day, these small volumes are compact enough to take along in an overstuffed diaper bag and designed for the mom who can only find a few minutes of peace each day to read.

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Philosophie et théologie

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Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 janvier 2009
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781585589081
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0259€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE NEW MOM S GUIDE TO Your Body after Baby
THE NEW MOM S GUIDE TO
Your Body after Baby
Susan Besze Wallace with Monica Reed, MD
2009 by MOPS International
Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wallace, Susan Besze, 1969-
The new mom s guide to your body after baby / Susan Besze Wallace, with Monica Reed.
p. cm. - (The new mom s guides ; bk. 1)
ISBN 978-0-8007-3298-1 (pbk.)
1. Puerperium. 2. Mothers-Health and hygiene. I. Reed, Monica, M.D. II. Title.
RG801.W35 2009 618.6-dc22 2008037949
The information provided herein should not be construed as prescribed health-care advice or instruction. The information is provided with the understanding that the publisher does not enter into a health-care practitioner/patient relationship with its readers. Readers who rely on information in this publication to replace the advice of health-care professionals, or who fail to consult with health-care professionals, assume all risks of such conduct.
Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.
Contents
Introduction: We re in This Together
1. Whose Body Is This? Navigating and Accepting Change
2. Breast-feeding Bumps: Being Someone Else s Refrigerator Isn t Always a Picnic
3. Coming Out of the Closet: Weight and Clothes
4. Downpour: Weathering Your Emotional Storms
5. Daddy Dish: A New Day for Both of You
Happy Mothering: Embracing Your New You
Acknowledgments
Introduction We re in This Together
S he sat refreshed after a very necessary shower, her oversized rocker moving gently. Through a picture window she could see snow falling from the gray sky. Holding a new baby couldn t have felt more right, more cozy, more miraculous.
In his sleep he lifted a tiny hand and grabbed her finger. I am home, he seemed to say.
I am home, she breathed, glancing at the stack of hospital discharge papers and freebies littering the kitchen table. Now what?
That perfect moment is etched forever on my heart. The baby I hoped for, prayed for, and waited for was finally in my arms! No one told me that in the days to follow, the euphoria would fade. There were certainly times of unspeakable joy but also unspeakable physical and emotional realities that left me feeling pretty bewildered. I didn t know how to talk about them.
Bleeding, cramping, feeling exhausted, being sore up here and sore down there, starving-but someone else s appetite now coming first. One day everyone is showering a pregnant woman with questions and advice, holding doors open for her, satisfying her cravings. The next day there s a little person outranking his mom s needs at every turn. A life-giving, taut belly has turned to mush, just like the sleep-deprived brain in the same body.
Did you miss the hospital pamphlet on that too?
On the pages that follow, we will seek to identify some of the stealth issues of the heart, mind, and body you might encounter and be unprepared for after bringing a baby home. The we I m referring to is dozens of moms and mom medical professionals who have been there, moms who wish they d known some things earlier, moms who wish they d shared more with their friends and family and not felt so isolated, moms who loved this crazy period in their lives and don t want you to go it alone.
Our hope is that you ll gain a new understanding of the challenges you face, see that you are indeed normal, and learn ways to baby yourself so you can be at your best as you embark on the privilege of parenting.
1 Whose Body Is This? Navigating and Accepting Change
A fter you ve had a baby, you don t come home from the hospital the same person who checked in. Whether you delivered vaginally or via cesarean section, in thirty minutes or two days, you must recover. And that s when the real labor begins.
As unique as your birth story was, so will be your road of recovery. Some women bounce back quickly, while others take weeks. Don t beat yourself up if you can t shake that cruddy feeling. And don t compare yourself with others. That will get you nowhere but frustrated fast. While people tend to pepper a new mom with questions: How s the baby doing? How s she sleeping? I always try to ask how mom is feeling. No one is holding her , feeding her on a schedule, or easing her into soft, new pajamas. But maybe we should!
It s been my experience that women feel they can share only the socially acceptable parts of life after baby with most other women. Usually they stick to the sleep challenges. But there s so much more. We ll get to the emotional ride shortly, but first, some honest thoughts on the gory after the glory of having a baby.
Bleeding
You knew there would be blood involved in childbirth. You may not have realized that mom gets to wear a diaper afterward too. The discharge, called lochia , is heavier with a vaginal birth than a C-section-having had both, I can vouch for that. It s tissue from the lining of your womb and should turn from bright red to pink or brown and be about finished by the time you have your six-week, post-baby checkup, if not before. But it can feel like it goes on forever. The humongous pads provided in the hospital might seem bulky and bothersome-very institutional-but use them. Take home the extras. You ll change them often enough in the beginning not to care about anything but coverage; plus, six weeks of pads gets expensive. Take home the sexy mesh underwear too. Use it. Take it. Trash it.
When you are breast-feeding, your uterus contracts, and it s likely you will feel gushes of blood when you stand up after, if not during, nursing. You should err on the side of changing your pads too often, just to be ready for these times. Remember that dad will have no idea what s going on inside you as you attempt to feed the baby. I always felt a little reminder was in order. I m not sure what I wanted him to say, but I m pretty sure he didn t say it. Really, how could he understand? Still I longed for his empathy.
I said we were going to be honest, right? Well here goes. After my third son was born by C-section two months early, I was hooked up to a catheter, some blood pressure socks, an IV, a pain ball for my incision, and I m not sure what else. With two young boys at home, my husband was pretty much homebound, and I was pretty much alone. If the white board they use as a pain scale had been within reach, I might have hurled it across the room. I was trying desperately to find a comfortable position for my stapled stomach and get some rest, and suddenly I felt like I had to go to the bathroom-right away. I was like a creature from a bad sci-fi movie, lumbering across the room with all my wires and machinery and three-day-dirty hair. When I managed to pull down and sit down, I thought I would pass out from the pain and loneliness of the moment.
And then my uterus dropped in the toilet. Or so I thought. By then I d pulled the cord, and a nurse was trying to assess the source of my tears. She assured me that it wasn t my uterus and told me I d passed a blood clot the size of a grapefruit. Lovely!
I share this for a couple of reasons, neither of which is to frighten you. If you don t feel right about what your body is doing, don t suffer in silence. Call the doctor. Clots are common at home too, though usually not that big. But if you aren t sure, ask. Here s the bigger picture: there are moments after having a baby, in the hospital and at home, that you feel desperately alone, rocked by the physical trauma you ve just undergone and the ripple effects it has on your body and spirit. Personally, I think it s preparation for the job ahead. Think how glass is tested and twisted in fire to become beautiful art. I think the first months after the birth of our baby mold us, cultivating our empathy for those who suffer, making us into mothers. It can be a gut-wrenching process, literally.
Not long after that experience, I was comforting my five-year-old on the bathroom floor during a bout of the stomach flu. This time I was the nurse, but I remembered well the tears that come from feeling like your insides are falling out. And I hope I never forget.
Ouch
It hurts to pee. If you delivered vaginally, you will probably have pain caused by stretching, tearing, or cutting. My hospital had a can of Dermoplast, an anesthetic spray, waiting to soothe. It helped (and it works on cuts and scrapes, so I moved it to the kids first-aid kit when I d recovered). The hospital also recommended using a squirt bottle of warm water on the vaginal area to dilute the stinging potential of urine. I dreaded how much it hurt to pee, so I waited until the last second. The squirt bottle doesn t help when it s not ready and waiting or the water is cold! But if you can plan ahead, and bite your lip, it helps.
Feeling Low
Good Advice
Ice packs, best early on.
Pain reliever, as directed by a doctor. Do not take
aspirin if you are breast-feeding.
Frequent pad-changing.
Warm-water squirt bottle while you pee.
Squeeze your cheeks together as you sit down.
Limit how long you sit still.
Witch hazel compresses.
Sitz baths: shallow warm-water soaks.
Take stool softener as directed and drink plenty of
water; don t strain with bowel movements.
Always call a doctor with increased pain or swelling
or if you run a fever.
Down Low

If you are afraid to pee, imagine your delight when it s time for number two! Hopefully in the hospital you were given a stool softener to mak