by Linze Floyd

Created on: July 25, 2008

After a natural childbirth, ample rest and good nutrition will be your best bet to a healthy recovery. Now that you have your child in your arms, you can truly understand what your body endured during childbirth: lots and lots of stretching!

Having gone through childbirth naturally, you have passed through the most painful aspect of recovery. In the days and weeks ahead, use your pain as an indicator that you need to rest. Take this opportunity to bond with your baby and let others do the cooking and cleaning. Bask in the glory of giving your child the best (natural) start possible and savor this small amount of time that you'll have to spend every moment in bed (or on the couch) gazing at your baby.

By resting, you won't aggravate sore and tender areas, and you won't strain muscles that have been stretched to their limits. By resting, you will allow your body's energy to be used solely to heal your body and to provide colostrum and milk to your child.

By eating a nutritive diet, rich in fruits and vegetables, you can further help your body to heal by giving it necessary nutrients that will hasten the healing process and give your child a strong start, if you've chosen to breastfeed. Breastfeeding also speeds up the recovery process by stimulating uterine contractions that will encourage bleeding to stop more quickly and will help your stomach to reach its pre-pregnancy size faster.

Use your pain and your bleeding as indicators throughout your healing process. If it hurts to walk (or to do any activity), your body is telling you to stop walking. Just as painful contractions during your labor were indicators that the birth of your baby was approaching, the pain you feel postpartum is there to tell you what you need to do. Trust your body's messages.

After the first week or so postpartum, your bleeding should change from a heavy, bright-red flow to a lighter, brownish-pink flow. This is your body letting you know that the blood vessels on your uterine wall where the placenta was have healed; but don't grab your running shoes just yet. If you increase your activity level too much, heavy, bright-red bleeding will return, telling you that the blood vessels have opened again and you are being too active. In fact, many midwives recommend that you be on your feet one minute per postpartum day (so that on your ninth day postpartum, you should only be on your feet for nine minutes).

To help cope with pain, try soaking in a warm sitz bath or applying ice packs to your perineum (which will most likely be the most painful part of your body). However, the best medicine is rest. Be assured, though, that the pain you're experiencing is well-worth it and only temporary.

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