Someone posted (snugbug?) about bleeding at 3 weeks and I said that if she was less active it might go away. That was poor advice as I have recently discovered. I stopped bleeding at 3 days to start again at 6. It was light spotting, nothing to be concerned about. On Mother's Day, 8 days PP I started soaking a pad every 2 hours. I did nothing strenuous, I read all day and snuggled with Hannah. The bleeding picked up by the evening and I was soaking a pad every hour and a half. Monday morning I shifted my position in the rocking chair and felt a large gush of blood. As I stood up to check on how much it was I gushed more and then all the way to the bathroom. When I showed DH he said it wasn't a big deal and I should take it easy (which I had been for the whole day before). When I continued to bleed and soak 2 pads in an hour I called the midwife who had me go in to the hospital where they did an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed "Retained Products In Uterus" and they scheduled me for a D and C in the surgical department. When I started to get scared (I was alone with Hannah, DH had to go home to be with the kids after a few hours) the OB on staff said she'd take a look and see if anything was visible. She ended up dilating my cervix with some metal device and pulling out a piece of amniotic sac that filled a urine specimen jar.
The flow of blood that followed it was bad enough that she told me i had made it just in time and I would have hemorrhaged much worse by that night and would have ended up in the ER.
This is not meant to scare anyone, I honestly thought that the bleeding was normal because no one else seemed concerned. If you are bleeding very heavily several days after birth, have a fever, headache, feel fluish, you have every right to call your HCP!!! I felt like I was being a bother and I could have made a terrible mistake by not calling!
Also, Regardless of how much you think you're not going to need expressed breastmilk, try to pump some as soon as you are able. I was in a panic thinking DH would have no way to feed her if I was admitted. I have started pumping just in case!
Ok, back to your regularly scheduled baby snuggling! Sorry to be so dramatic, but if it saves one mama from suffering needlessly then it's worth it.
Jessica
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Mama to *3* boys Isaac, Gabriel, Jack, and Hannah, the long-awaited one, born into water and her Daddy's hands on 4/30/2005!
Sometimes life can be so surprising!
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