Homeopathy and the early postpartum period: a series
First of all, if you are reading this because you are recently postpartum, congratulations on being postpartum. No matter what your pregnancy was or was not like, and no matter what your labor experience was or was not like, your body, mind, and soul have all been put through the ringer.
My postpartum experience was very surprising. I thought that my extensive preparations for labor meant that my postpartum experience would be ok. Maybe that seems silly in retrospect as they aren’t totally related, but it’s what I thought at the time. And true, thanks to all the preparation I did and a good dose of luck, I had a vaginal delivery like I wanted, emotionally I felt supported and had lots of help through the labor and early postpartum and no interventions were used on me or my baby. But still, I felt like postpartum chewed me up and spat me back out in a shockingly violent fashion.
I felt weak; walking down the hall to the bathroom felt like a big accomplishment for the first few days and going down the stairs with stitches was no fun. Sitting was, well, horrendous, but it was also what I did for most of my day, and my stomach felt like a deflated balloon. If someone pushed me sideways, I felt like I would just fall over; my abs were just…gone. Breathing felt strange now that the bowling ball had left my abdomen. I spent days doing breathing exercises, just to retrain my body on what breathing should feel like.
Over the weeks as I physically recovered from the delivery, new things kept popping up. I became so emotional that a vase of flowers basically made me hysterical one night. My skin changed, which when paired with my new grey hairs and circles under my eyes from sleep deprivation was a bit depressing. I stank (supposedly so my new baby could recognize me since newborns can’t see much), I would sweat at night, I got mastitis twice (which basically feels like a horrible flu with the addition of painful breasts and painful breastfeeding) and breastfeeding was way harder than I ever expected. My husband, who didn’t have to do a ton of hand-holding during labor, did have to hold my hand every time I had to feed our son for one particularly bad week while I tried to endure the pain of cracked, bleeding nipples being munched on. Since postpartum women are discharged from their GP/OB/midwife at 6 weeks, I thought things would be pretty healed by then. Imagine my horror when I went to a pelvic floor physio at 7 weeks postpartum and was told I was in the “early” days of postpartum recovery and that lifting with heavy weights (my preferred form of therapy) or going for a run (my preferred form of meditation) would not be happening for a quite a few months. The work of delivering and feeding babies is clearly not for the faint of heart.
Like pregnancy, most of the difficulties women face postpartum are considered normal and unless they become excessive, are not treated. I think that does a disservice to women. Homeopathy helped me handle most of these complaints quickly and without residual symptoms lingering. Remedies helped decrease my bleeding and pain in the days immediately after the delivery, and remedies helped regulate my emotions so that after that one flower-crying incident, I could get on with my life. Remedies helped my mastitis clear quickly and without need for antibiotics. Of course a remedy won’t teach you or your baby the perfect, pain-free latch, nor will they make a one-week old baby sleep through the night, but they can help clear the other clutter away – the pain, the emotions, the swelling – and let you and baby focus on the important stuff – each other.
So for those who are recently postpartum, I have written a series of posts on how to treat common postpartum issues. As always, however, homeopathy is INDIVIDUALIZED treatment. So even though in these articles I discuss the CLASSIC remedies for each condition, it doesn’t mean the remedy you need is discussed here.
Posts on Early Postpartum Recovery:
Perineal trauma – pain, swelling, tearing and episiotomy
Posts on newborn care:
3 ways to be successful at homeopathic treatment in early postpartum and/or with a newborn
How much of an alcoholic liquid dose can you give infants and children