Another newbie with some questions...

Submitted by ohbrother on February 14, 2008 - 11:01pm
Body: 

Hi! I'm so glad I found this site. I've been skimming some of the posts and they have helped to alleviate some of my concerns.

I am almost 7 weeks pp (baby #3) and have been having ongoing issues since 1 week pp. Mostly issues with chronic lower abdominal pain for which no cause has been found (CT scans, ultrasounds, pelvic exams, blood tests). So we are at a loss. Anyway, I went for my 6 week check-up last week and my midwife said I am healing very well and that everything is in its proper place. She did a muscle tone check and said I had "great muscle tone." Due to the ongoing abdominal pain, my OB also wanted to do a pelvic exam as well. He said all was fine, but mentioned to the midwife that I had "a little bit of a cystocele." I had recently read about this in my internet searches for possible reasons for my pain, and I was alarmed when he said this. I asked if I should be concerned and he said, "No. It's not anything I don't see on any other woman who has just had a baby." He's been doing this for over ten years and is a good dr., so I'm guessing he was pretty confident in that remark...but still - it concerns me. They did say that the nothing "down there" is the source of my current abdominal pain.

I've tried to do a self-check and don't see anything down there...of course, I've never really looked before, so I don't actually know what I'm supposed to look like! I've checked standing up, after lifting, at the end of the day...etc. (Ok, I'm tend to lean towards OCD!!) ;o) - I don't see anything bulging. I've even tried to do a self-exam check while standing and I don't feel anything bulging out in there. I thought that *maybe* I felt it tonight, but if I did, it was quite small (thankfully).

If I didn't have this before, I'm sure that my complicated pregnancy and birth contributed to this. Among other things, my little one was breech and I did a lot of "turning exercises" to encourage her to turn. I regret this now (she never turned anyway), because I think those things were hard on my ligaments and muscles down there. Also, we thought she was going to be a c-section, so I ended up with my first epidural (:regret it:) because we didn't want to do general anesthesia (sp?) in the event it turned out that way. I had to deliver on my back because she was breech. I pushed a little over an hour (typical for me anyway...I can't catch a break with the pushing phase!), but I didn't have the good control I would have had without the epi.

I felt so amazing after her birth that I literally bounced back into the world as if I'd never given birth. I REALLY regret that because I didn't allow my body to heal at all. Anyway, I wonder if all of these things could have contributed to this.

So here are my questions.
1. Since I know it's there, I certainly don't want to make things worse. Does anyone have any tips for me as far as increasing my chances of this thing improving or resolving? I was happy to read that others here have seen a resolution of a cystocele. I definitely want more children, so I'd love to know I can keep this thing under control. (I know for sure I need to improve my posture...I'm a big time sloucher.)

2. My little one is breastfed and getting chunky already. She's already gained about 5 - 6 pounds since we brought her home! I want to hold her A LOT, but I'm a little worried about carrying her around and making the prolapse worse. I do get a lot of pressure when I carry her around, but I also tend to get that all through my abdomen anyway (I'm underweight and tend to be overly aware of bodily sensations as it is - so it's hard for me to tell if I'm just worrying about it because I know about it!)
I also intend to wear her more...any tips in that department? Are certain carriers better for prolapse moms?

3. I want to buy Christine's book, and I noticed she has a new one. Should I go for the new one (more expensive), or will the older one be just as useful?

After hearing what my dr. said about this being so common, I can't believe I had never heard of it before! I also read on another site that a mild cystocele was "a given" in the early postpartum period...I guess if more women knew about it, they would be able to be proactive before things really did get out of hand.

Thank you for reading this, and I'm looking forward to hearing tips from other mommies! I'm sorry this was so long.

louiseds

February 15, 2008 - 3:24am

Hi OhBrother

Welcome. My main comment is that the second edition of Christine's book is more comprehensive, and way better than the first.

My second comment is that you are way too early postpartum to be making any judgements about how your prolapse will be in the long run. Give your body another 12 months before it will really be back to normal after birth. Get into Whole Woman posture, look after your diet to keep your bowel light, learn from the other women here how to wear your baby (they will post, believe me!), ensure that your clothing doesn't compress your lower belly so your pelvic organs have room to position themselves over your pubic bone, which takes the weight off your pelvic floor.

It will possibly take some time, but none of these things will do you any harm at all, possibly being as good as preventing further damage as well as helping your body to recover. Keep calling back. Oh, also search "wearing baby", "carrier", "sling" and other similar words in the search box at left. This will bring up all the topics with posts containing these words. Then use your browser's Find function to go to all occurrences of the words in all posts in the topic.

Cheers

Louise

ohbrother

February 15, 2008 - 12:50pm

Thank you so much for your response. It was encouraging and helpful.

I will use your suggestions, but I thought of another question (a silly one). I am having a LOT of lower back pain from holding my baby and due to the epidural. I practically live with my heating pad now. The lower abdominal pain I have sometimes feels like period cramps and I really want to use the heating pad on my abdomen too. Is it bad to apply heat if you have a prolapse? I know the heat causes things to relax, but I don't know that I want stuff down there to relax!

Also, is bad to sit on an exercise ball? Will that worsen the prolapse?

Any thoughts?

ATS

February 15, 2008 - 1:08pm

Welcome to the forum. Your questions are not silly at all, we all arrived here FULL of questions and still have them months/years down the line.

I am not sure why you are getting the lower back pain and you may need to seek medical help for that. I myself had an epidural 6 years ago and still to this day I cannot bear to be touched on that part of my back - strange. The abdominal cramps you are getting could be your uterus shrinking back. I am not sure how long it takes but it can cause crampy type feelings, this is not something I ever had but friends have commented on this. Keep an eye on it and ask for help if you feel something is not right. I shouldn't think applying heat will cause your prolapses to relax and worsen, I relax in a hot bath regularly and it never even crossed my mind that it will make my pelvic region relax! I would do what feels good for you to help with the pain/discomfort so long as you are not putting any strain on your pelvic region.

Make sure you are moving around and sitting in posture, if you haven't got the book then you can find a description of the posture on the homepage under the FAQ's section. Sitting on an exercise ball is fine so long as you are keeping yourself in the posture. There are some ladies on the forum who use an exercise ball for sitting but I cannot recall off the top of my head who it was. We just always have to make sure that we are protecting and not straining our pelvic organs, I think once you have prolapse you know exactly when that happens and you adapt what you are doing!

I forgot to congratulat you on the birth of your daughter so CONGRATULATIONS!

Take care,

Anita

granolamom

February 15, 2008 - 1:50pm

congrats on the new baby and welcome to the site

I agree with the others, the new book is definitely worth the money. 7 weeks pp is so so so early. take it easy, girl! with a new baby and two older ones around you HAVE to make the effort to go easy on yourself. that said, I personally find it impossible to limit carrying a newborn. its like taking a newborn calf away from momma cow. just isn't going to happen. which brings me to my next -and favorite- topic
babywearing. for babywearing with prolapse I find the meitai most comfortable. I like to wear the baby high up on my chest (or back now that he's bigger) and I dont' feel any extra pressure. and I haven't found that its aggravated my prolapses.

ah, said baby is calling me now. so in short, enjoy your baby - don't let prolapse take that away from you! but do try the posture as much as you can, go easy on yourself and think positive. your cystocele sounds like its so small I'm very optimistic for you.

and we were all just saying in another thread that we wished we knew about this before having kids. one of obgyn's best kept secrets, huh.

ohbrother

February 15, 2008 - 9:37pm

Thank you so much for the advice, ladies. I had done a little too much "research" online prior to my six week check-up, so just hearing my dr. utter the word "cystocele" sent me into a mental spiral. I should be grateful he used the words "a little bit of" in the same sentence. I realize things could be a lot worse.

I had a follow-up appt. with my midwife today regarding the abdominal pain. She was going to refer me to internal medicine if I wanted. However, she felt like since all labs and other tests have come back with good results, we could wait this thing out and try other therapies since it's a bit of a mystery but not necessarily an emergency. She's leaning more towards the possibility of muscle and ligament damage now due to the difficult pregnancy and the fact that I carried breech the whole way through (I'm really small, and I definitely felt a different impact during the pregnancy from this baby than with my others. I also have a history of breaking my tailbone...had to do it more than once, of course...so that didn't help me either.) She suggested a visit with the chiropractor. I also ordered tart cherry juice the other day to see if that helps with the pain.

I currently have a hotsling and an ergo...I've only used the hotsling with her so far (I don't have the ergo infant insert yet.) I do get really achy and have a lot of the abdominal pain after carrying her in the hotsling for a while, but hopefully my postural changes will help with that.

I'll look into getting the new edition of the book as well.

Thank you again for the encouragement!!
~Andrea