Difference between c-section stomach and any other stomach?
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spatulathumbs wrote: »I didn't have a c/s but still have the flap. Lucky f-ing me. My skin just is really prone to not being very elastic and carrying a huge child stretched me out. It's just the luck of the draw. And I had a so-called medical professional try and caution me into a c/s because my hips were too wide. Go figure that one. You ladies who went through that, though... I have mad respect for all of you.
I'm another non csectioner who has a big flap. I'm (im)patiently waiting to see how much it decreases. My daughter was not big (7lbs 2oz) but my stomach was crazy big when I was pregnant. Add to that being overweight before pregnancy and not losing weight for almost 7 years afterward. Boo.0 -
spatulathumbs wrote: »I didn't have a c/s but still have the flap. Lucky f-ing me. My skin just is really prone to not being very elastic and carrying a huge child stretched me out. It's just the luck of the draw. And I had a so-called medical professional try and caution me into a c/s because my hips were too wide. Go figure that one. You ladies who went through that, though... I have mad respect for all of you.
I'm another non csectioner who has a big flap. I'm (im)patiently waiting to see how much it decreases. My daughter was not big (7lbs 2oz) but my stomach was crazy big when I was pregnant. Add to that being overweight before pregnancy and not losing weight for almost 7 years afterward. Boo.
Yeah, I know I gained too much with him, but he was over 11 lbs. No GD or anything, just a big ol' baby. I should've taken better care of myself but the first year after he was born I had so many health issues, I was mentally and emotionally just wrung out. It was harder than I thought and I didn't really set myself up to succeed. Which I think a lot of us, maybe, can relate to. And I think mine is exacerbated by some previous surgeries which left scar tissue in the area, so my flap is worse on one side.0 -
spatulathumbs wrote: »spatulathumbs wrote: »I didn't have a c/s but still have the flap. Lucky f-ing me. My skin just is really prone to not being very elastic and carrying a huge child stretched me out. It's just the luck of the draw. And I had a so-called medical professional try and caution me into a c/s because my hips were too wide. Go figure that one. You ladies who went through that, though... I have mad respect for all of you.
I'm another non csectioner who has a big flap. I'm (im)patiently waiting to see how much it decreases. My daughter was not big (7lbs 2oz) but my stomach was crazy big when I was pregnant. Add to that being overweight before pregnancy and not losing weight for almost 7 years afterward. Boo.
Yeah, I know I gained too much with him, but he was over 11 lbs. No GD or anything, just a big ol' baby. I should've taken better care of myself but the first year after he was born I had so many health issues, I was mentally and emotionally just wrung out. It was harder than I thought and I didn't really set myself up to succeed. Which I think a lot of us, maybe, can relate to. And I think mine is exacerbated by some previous surgeries which left scar tissue in the area, so my flap is worse on one side.
I found the same time period super difficult. She was an easy baby and my husband was/is great and supportive but (whisper voice) I'm not a big fan of the baby stage. It seemed like something clicked and got much easier as soon as she hit 2 though.
When I was pregnant our shower stall had sliding doors. Every morning I would try to fit through the opening without hitting the door or frame. It was like a life sized version of Operation. And every morning I would run into it with my giant stomach, which was super sensitive to the touch. Ugh I hated those doors but I laugh about it now.0 -
UNLESS YOU ARE DEFORMED, there is no way to know whether you have to have a C-section due to mechanics (baby getting stuck, whatevs) before you go into labor. C-sections almost never have to do with the anatomy of the mother alone. @#$#@ OB/GYNs need to keep their stupid mouths shut because they're talking out of their rear ends. It's no truer than whether you carry high or wide determining what kind of baby you will have, boy or girl.
Adhesions from C-sections can go through all tissue layers. They can adhere to intestines, causing extreme pain with movement. In the uterus, they can cause permanent infertility. There are treatments for adhesions that lessen the problems between layers (but none can restore fertility very effectively). This involves endoscopic surgery to clean out the scar tissue. It can reoccur unless a special medical-grade silicone spray is used to encourage the layers not to stick again during healing. (Had a friend with a mother with reoccurring adhesions--this was the final solution to get it to repair correctly.)
Vertical cuts of all types don't heal as well or as strongly as horizontal cuts across the body, so extreme emergency C-sections usually cause more damage and more problems down the road.
Just moving around while the C-section is healing does NOT fully prevent adhesions. I have endometrial adhesions that sometimes grow and act up, and it's not linked to my activity levels. It seems to be something you're either prone to or not.
I don't personally have a C-section scar.
There is no way to prevent needing a C-section, but there are ways to reduce its probability. Get pregnant at a healthy weight and gain only 20-30lbs during pregnancy and monitor for diabetes of pregnancy and control it aggressively if you have it. This alone slashes your first C-section probability by about half. It also GREATLY reduces the chances of your undercarriage getting seriously damaged during vaginal birth.
If you're doing fertility treatments, be conservative about the possibility of multiples. Multiples almost always equals prematurity and C-section--it's not ideal for any of you.
Stay in good shape, if you can. (I could for my second--couldn't for my third. What a DIFFERENCE that made as far as ease of labor!) If you're in early labor and get woken up by it and can go back to sleep, from personal experience, this will make later labor much easier.
Mother's ability to push, which depends on her physical reserves, can be a factor.
Don't go into the hospital until your labor is well underway, following the guidelines of your doctor. If you go in very early labor, you'll be more likely to be told that your labor is too long regardless of the stress (or complete lack of stress) on your baby because you're there too long.
If you are being pushed to have a C-section, make sure it's not shift-change C-sections. If your OB/GYN has a practice where whoever attends the birth can go home and be replaced by whoever comes next, you'll be less likely to get a C-section for reasons of the OB's convenience (conscious or unconscious).
Delaying an epidural or other pain killer also show positive effects in reducing C-section frequency.
Having your first kid without a C-section enormously reduces your chances of having a C-section for later kids. But emergencies can happen to anyone. Breech births can happen to anyone, and delivering breech vaginally is dangerous and, in some positions, simply TOO dangerous to do. Rarely but seriously, dystocia can occur with even a normal-sized baby with a woman who has had normal births before. (This is more common with sunny-side-up babies but can happen with the normal face-down position, too.) The baby could also have a birth defect that makes vaginal birth too risky. You can suddenly develop pre-eclampisa without being high risk due to controllable factors. Or the baby could go into serious, sudden distress for unknown reasons. (A "cord around his neck" doesn't cause a baby distress in normal circumstances. The cord moves downward with the placenta during birth, it does NOT get tighter. A knot in the cord, if it is tight, can cause death, but if someone blames a stillbirth on a "cord around the neck", your OB/GYN really has no idea why it happened and is blowing smoke.) Placental abruption, placenta previa, and amnoitic embolism can all require C-sections (and in the third, in all likelihood, you'll die--INSANELY rare and unpredictable), and only previa can usually be seen before labor begins. If the baby's head isn't engaged, which is most likely in women who have either had no kids or a WHOLE lot of kids, the cord can prolapse, and that instantly needs a C-section or the baby can die. I know a woman who had an unmedicated C-section after a very precipitous labor with prolapse. YIKES. She'd had 6 normal vaginal births before.
And you can do everything absolutely WRONG and still have an uneventful vaginal birth. It's all about probability. 0 -
Maybe the vertical/horizontal is simply down to the surgeons preference like a lot of surgeries? My emergency c section was horizontal (UK).
EXTREME emergencies are usually the only ones that are vertical these days. The mom I knew who had to have the C section before the pain killers hit was vertical. She's one of the only ones I know with a vertical C-section these days.
Vertical C-sections greatly increase the chances of uterine rupture (your uterus bursts, and you often bleed to death before you can get help, even if you are in the hospital), so they don't like to do it. Having more than 6 kids also raises the chances of uterine rupture, BTW.
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I had two and my stomach looks normal. I think like anything, everyone is different.0
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This is what they did to me... I was terrified, but honestly, removing the stitches a week or so later did not hurt that much... Well, I gave birth in a very poor place with virtually no medical supplies (forget about analgesics, damn it, there was not much heat there as far as I remember!), but very good doctors and nurses... I am glad they had threads to stitch me up at all!I had a vaginal birth and had a few (not too many) stitches afterward. As the doctor was stitching me up I asked him if I'd have to have them removed later. I can remember him saying "Oh god, no. That would be a terrible thing to do to a new mom!"
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NobodyPutsAmyInTheCorner wrote: »Tell you what the worst thing is for me? The damn itching. It still itches now even after 10 years.
Oh my god the damned itching! Pure hell!! My c-section was three years ago, and they closed me up with Steri-strips. Yeah, f*cking TAPE!!! Let me tell you, seeing those things hanging and falling off is traumatizing. Oh, and I have the "shelf" too
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Steri-strips, really? I had them with my two abdominal surgeries (gallbladder and appendix both outtahere!) but can't imagine it for an incision as long as my c-section scar. Then again, I had staples that were removed about 24 hours later so what do I know?raelynnsmama52512 wrote: »NobodyPutsAmyInTheCorner wrote: »Tell you what the worst thing is for me? The damn itching. It still itches now even after 10 years.
Oh my god the damned itching! Pure hell!! My c-section was three years ago, and they closed me up with Steri-strips. Yeah, f*cking TAPE!!! Let me tell you, seeing those things hanging and falling off is traumatizing. Oh, and I have the "shelf" too
Between the sets of scars for each of those surgeries plus the c-section scar, I look like Frankenstein's monster in the middle. Unfortunately for the people at the beach and the pool, I don't let them stop me from wearing bikinis.
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@MamaBirdBoss Thank you for sharing your insight! If you don't mind me asking, are you a medical professional? You obviously know a lot about all this!0
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I guess I don't know that for sure, that's just what three different doctors have told me will likely be necessary. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, I figure it's wise to adjust my expectations accordingly.
I agree with those who say you really can't tell until you're at that point so if you want a vaginal birth you don't need to rule it out. That said I did end up having 2 planned sections, for a different issue during pregnancy, and have to say they are totally fine...on your feet in 24 hours, on just standard painkillers within 48 hours ..so it is nothing to fear.
Agree with the "can't tell" until you are there but the rest is no, not for me. Not for many people I know either. You can have risks, as I did-uterine infection from it and also I have severe extensive adhesions that have causes so much pain and issues with my stomach, and bladder/bowels. This is not anything to take lightly. It's major surgery.
ETA that I messed up the quote portion like fives times...wth...okay, so I think it's fixed now.
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NobodyPutsAmyInTheCorner wrote: »I'd rather eat horse poo than have another child. Seriously.
Yup. Me too.0 -
Had a planned c-section with my twin boys as one if them was breech and the top twin was in distress. I weighed 111 lbs when I got pregnant and put on 47 lbs with them. I still have a shelf and stretched out skin that only surgery can remove, but honestly I think I am too self conscious. My hubby says I look good. I had a horizontal incision and staples, and my scar is very low - my doc said she did that so I could wear a bikini. I had my daughter 4 years later with a vaginal delivery but needed suction to get her out quickly because of a low heartbeat. I still wear a bikini and if someone doesn't like it they don't have to look at me! After 8 miscarriages and a stillbirth they are reminders of how lucky I am to have my kids.0
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I have what I classify as c-section belly. I had 2 vaginal births and 2 cesarean's. After the 1st c/s my stomach went right back to normal. Unfortunately, after the 2nd there is a lot more saggy loose skin. I call it my front butt because it is bigger than my rear end. I think "some" of it has to do with the surgeon. I'm certain my first OB pulled things a little tighter before he stitched me up. The 2nd one was foisted on me after my OB suddenly left the practice and I don't think he cared much and just left things loose. All personal opinion.
7 years later it is still numb. Trying to figure out how I could take a picture and it be appropriate for MFP..0 -
severe extensive adhesions that have causes so much pain and issues with my stomach, and bladder/bowels. This is not anything to take lightly. It's major surgery.
I feel your pain! My adhesions mess with my bladder/bowel in addition to pain when doing sit ups, etc. Just curious for anyone with this- have your Drs suggested any ways to help alleviate this even a little, other than surgery to remove scar tissue?0 -
Steri-strips, really? I had them with my two abdominal surgeries (gallbladder and appendix both outtahere!) but can't imagine it for an incision as long as my c-section scar. Then again, I had staples that were removed about 24 hours later so what do I know?raelynnsmama52512 wrote: »NobodyPutsAmyInTheCorner wrote: »Tell you what the worst thing is for me? The damn itching. It still itches now even after 10 years.
Oh my god the damned itching! Pure hell!! My c-section was three years ago, and they closed me up with Steri-strips. Yeah, f*cking TAPE!!! Let me tell you, seeing those things hanging and falling off is traumatizing. Oh, and I have the "shelf" too
Between the sets of scars for each of those surgeries plus the c-section scar, I look like Frankenstein's monster in the middle. Unfortunately for the people at the beach and the pool, I don't let them stop me from wearing bikinis.
Yup, steri-strips. I never understood why they used those on such a large incision. I mean, I had my ankle reconstructed a few years back and had stitches in it, and my mom told me how she had staples after her c-section with me. It was, shocking to say the least. I remember saying this to my husband:
"Really? Really? They sliced my stomach open, pulled out a 7lb human, and closed me up with *kitten* TAPE?! Oh my god!"0 -
Disclaimer.. I know I have a fat stomach. That is why I am here. However, after my 1st c/s the hang below my belly button did not exist. It was much flatter (at the same weight). My scar is SUPER low.
My "front butt". I actually have to buy pants a size or more larger to fit this in them.
My scar is just below where my pants are sitting in the below picture:
Lifting the loose skin up:
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Its really interesting to hear other c/s stories. I have had 5 pregnancies, 4 full term births (one second trimester loss). My first was a c/s,....then 3 vaginal births, then my second c/s last august. I had steri strips to close for the first pregnancy, then staples the last. The staples were in for 5 days.
I definitely have the "apron". I was heavy before pregnancy though, had 5 babies in 6.5 years, and all my live births were over 9#.0 -
PeachyPlum wrote: »@MamaBirdBoss Thank you for sharing your insight! If you don't mind me asking, are you a medical professional? You obviously know a lot about all this!
I'm a person with several extremely rare conditions. So I had to be educated because things that aren't problems for other people can be lethal for me. And soft-tissue injuries heal badly and often incompletely for me. I still have rare though occasional pain from a soft-tissue injury that didn't tear any ligaments or anything when I was 18. I'm 35 now. It took me 12 years to be completely pain-free from a simple sprained ankle. Oh, and general anesthesia can easily kill me if they do it wrong.
When you have an insanely rare genetic disorder, you have to know your stuff. I started with that, then developed exercise-induced anaphylaxis (pure chance, not related) and later discovered that I was very subfertile (possibly related--no one knows), so I got to go through all of that nonsense, too, yay.
All of my doctors start out assuming I'm a doctor or nurse myself. LOL. A LOT of my family are medical professionals, too. I've got access to a good deal of the medical journals through them, too. I read a book that was basically the entire summary of the current knowledge on reproductive endocrinology when I was going through fertility treatments (meant for reproductive endocrinologists) with summaries of every kind of research that's been done.
It's very disappointing how blase OB/GYNs are about abdominal surgery. They consider C-sections to be "no complications" if you heal without infection and the baby is fine. Unfortunately, adhesions occur in about 15% of FIRST C-sections, and that doesn't even count people who don't technically have adhesions but have excessive scar tissue. A number of women are rendered infertile by just one C-section due to Asherman's syndrome from the adhesions. You don't know whether you're prone to adhesions until you have abdominal surgery.
A C-section also determines the total number of children you can safely have. In general, it's generally safe to have up to 12 kids vaginally. Six are in the definite "a-ok" zone before you have any risk of uterine rupture to speak of. Doctors prefer 2 C-sections, max, or 3 the outside. If you're having your 4th kid by C-section, you're at a VERY elevated risk for uterine rupture. Women are medically advised against getting pregnant if they've had 3 C-sections. So if you have a C-section that isn't truly medically necessary with the first child, your doctor has made the choice of your family size for you, right then.
I don't know why that doesn't trouble more people, whether they want 1 child or 6. Doctors don't even tell women this AT ALL. Having a C-section over a vaginal birth also causes women, on average, to be more likely to change their expectation of family size downward--basically, the experience is such that women who go through C-sections are more likely to choose to have fewer kids after birth than women who have had vaginal births.
It's not bad for everyone. And vaginal births can be traumatic for some, too, depending on how it goes! But it does affect the *average* woman over a longer time and more negatively than just until the dressings come off.0 -
severe extensive adhesions that have causes so much pain and issues with my stomach, and bladder/bowels. This is not anything to take lightly. It's major surgery.
I feel your pain! My adhesions mess with my bladder/bowel in addition to pain when doing sit ups, etc. Just curious for anyone with this- have your Drs suggested any ways to help alleviate this even a little, other than surgery to remove scar tissue?
There are none.
You can tear them loose, but because they're injured now, they're likely to re-form.
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