Postnatal Care Tips
By: AlbrightTotal Views: 336, Word Count: 611,
Postnatal period begins immediate after the birth of a child and lasts for six weeks. It is a biological condition after birth, when the mother's body, her hormone levels and uterus size, returns to before pregnancy conditions. Here are very important postnatal care tips for mothers to take care for easy recovery after delivery.
Postnatal Care Tips
After Pain Care
- When delivery is over, sometimes mothers still get a cramping in lower abdominal with pain on and off.
- This takes place due to uterus contracting in response to oxytocin, a natural body hormone.
- It is nature’s way of getting back the uterus into normal size. Take care of it and if the pain is accompanied with fever, then inform your doctor.
Lochia or Postnatal Vaginal Discharge Care
- This is referred as discharge from the vagina, which mainly contains shedding of the inner lining of the uterus.
- This takes place for 4 days like a menstrual flow called Lochia rubra
- So it is needed to take care of it just like a menstrual period, where it is required to use sanitary protection.
- Hygiene and care of episiotomy will help to prevent infection and foul smell
Urination Care
- The first day, the mother must pass urine at least once in 2 – 3 hours, though she would have pain in the stitches.
- In this condition, bladder becomes full without any realization, which can cause problems of infections.
- Mother’s body removes the excess water and salt in this postnatal condition
Breast Care
- The first day, the mother will have watery, yellowish discharge coming from the breasts called colostrum. This is rich in nutritive factors needed for the baby.
- Feed this to your baby. From the 3rd day onwards due to hormonal changes, milk flow increases. So regular feeding is very important to prevent engorgement in breast.
Care of Episiotomy
If you have stitches, then it’s very important to take care of it particularly in the first week. So do following things to stay healthy after delivery:
- Clean the area of stitches at least twice a day with antiseptic solution like Savlon, Dettol, etc.
- Apply antiseptic creams, e.g. Soframycin, Betadine E, Metrogyl gel, etc. which are important to prevent infection.
- Use pain relieving methods like hot seitz baths, hot water bag or hot water washes. This will make the mother feel better.
- Sometimes local application of ointment like 2% xylocaine acts as a local pain-reliever and minimizes pain.
- Infrared lamp rays heat to the area of stitches may be useful for faster recovery.
- Oral medications also take care of preventing postnatal infection
- Most doctors use stitches that dissolve on their own, so there is no need to take specific care for these stitches.
Postnatal Care
Sexual activity should be avoided in postnatal conditions.
All these postnatal care tips will help the mother to recover properly and healthily after delivering her baby.
About the Author
Albright is a well known physician who has done his graduated from the Louisiana State University Medical School, New Orleans. He is practicing as a general physician from last 10 years. He has a good knowledge of treating patients with problems using clinical best practices and protocols. He gives individualized, updated, personal attention to his patient at the uppermost level of clinical efficiency. His special interests are Neuro Somatic disorders, heart diseases, neurological disorders, join pains and chest diseases. Currently he is working at Kindred hospitals
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