7 Weeks Postpartum, Needing support

Welcome to this wonderful forum and Congratulations on the birth of your baby. Take a deep breath, try to relax, yes, you are going to be okay. You want to study the posture and take hold of it. If you find yourself forgetting, just vow to remember. You want to relax your belly, uplift your chest, crown of the head uplifted, and breath into your belly. Do not tuck your tailbone or pull your tummy in. This posture will help you to reposition your organs and to strengthen. If I were you, I would wait on any exercise now that is not Whole Woman exercise. You are only 7 weeks PP and at this time, the most important thing is to gain strength again, rest, walk in WW posture, enjoy that baby. The last 10 lbs will come in time, try not to rush that. Have you ordered yet Christine's book and her DVDs? there are four dvds and all of them are wonderful. the second wheel is particularly good for postpartum. I ordered the whole bundle and am thrilled that I did. Sex is no problem for prolapse as long as you can communicate to your partner in case something is not comfortable for you. Most men do not notice any of our changes with POP. If you think it would be helpful, Lanny has an article here on this site which is excellent and directed to the husbands or partners. Browse around here and put questions into the search box and post as many questions as you want. You are not alone, we have all gone through the fear and panic. You are going to be okay and the first step will be to commit to this new posture. Give your body time to recover from all that it has done and take your first steps to bringing a new beautiful posture into your life. I send you much love and best wishes.

Wow. In 2008 I was in just about the same place you are now. It's a dark place, don't I know it. I've come a long way and you can too. Track my posts, read my success story. There is absolutely no way your insides can ever fall out. For exercise, start with walking -- every day -- in whole woman posture, and then build on it. Soon there will be nothing you can't do without a little mindfulness about your body alignment. Sex -- possible and enjoyable. I do not have experience with vulvodynia (have you tried acupuncture for this??) but can honest say that prolapse is not interfering at all in my very satisfying sex life. Seven weeks pp is so, so early. Honey, it takes about 2 years for your body to revert from pregnancy and birth. Tons of healing is in store for you! I repeat, it is anatomically impossible for your pelvic organs to fall out. So take a deep breath, invest in yourself with this Whole Woman method, and look forward to the rest of your life!!

Hi Caterpillar - We have all been at that scary place where you are now, where you think that life as you know it is over. Well, not so. But you have work to do! It can be joyous work in which you learn to love and appreciate your body in ways you didn't know about.

Is a workout DVD safe? Well, for you right now, if it is not one of Christine's, then no. It isn't. It will tell you to suck in your gut and tuck your butt under and probably assume some body positions that are designed to pull your pelvic organs in completely the wrong directions. You must first learn this posture and make it your own. Then and only then can you judge what's safe and what's bad. And you will never be able to completely avoid some "bad" from time to time. None of us can stay in perfect WW posture every second of every day. But you need to acquire these tools before you do anything else.

If you have not already, go to the Resources tab and look for Videos. Watch the first video which is an overview of Christine's work and explains how we got into this suck-and-tuck pickle in the first place, and how to get back the true female posture that supports our organs.

This has been life-changing for me. I wish that I'd known about it at your age. You may be feeling a bit helpless and lost right now, but you have found your way here and things are about to turn around for you. Good luck, work hard. - Surviving

Hi Cat - yes you absolutely do have lots of PP healing ahead of you. The prolapse could retreat some on its own even if you don't do anything. But if you adopt posture now, you're giving yourself the best chance for good results now AND later. It is so worth it....can't stress it enough.

I started with just the book. I soaked it up like a sponge and still keep it by my bedside 2-1/2 years later. The next thing I got was the First Aid DVD. Not only to get a better understanding of some of the moves (like firebreathing) but also for the additional prolapse overview that you get with that DVD that you don't get if you jump right to the Yoga DVDs. I acquired each of those in turn, and I love them not just for the moves but for the wonderful women's wisdom they contain. I now have and love the whole collection, but if you're acquiring things one at a time, I think this sequence works best.

The 2nd yoga is excellent for post partum. But I wouldn't necessarily skip over First Aid to get it. There is so much knowledge here, it takes time to absorb.

Anything you can do with lumbar curvature in place (once this has become a posture you can hold naturally) is probably safe. And you don't want to be leaning forward with your body at an obtuse angle. I'm a walker, and don't have an elliptical so I don't have the best answer on that.

You're on your way, girl! Best of luck to you. - Surviving

My vote would be for the DVD -- includes exercises, and probably is more "digestible" for a mother of 5!

I'd go for the First Aid For Prolapse DVD first. The workout is split into bitesize pieces, perfect if you stand a high risk of being interrupted after five mins. Just a little bit each day is good both mentally and physically.

Pull up into posture - see Ms. N's first post. And stop checking. - Surviving

For me it took about two weeks to begin to feel that I had the posture going pretty well. The soreness in my back and hips left me around that time. Within 6 weeks I began to have moments when I was without POP symptoms. I am about seven months here now and things are still improving. We all are different but if you are using the posture always when up and about, and always always relaxing the tummy and breathing into the tummy (not shallow chest breathing) , you are well on your way. Best wishes to you.

I just looked at your history and see that you have been here for five+ years....wow. Have you been using the posture all of this time?

Oh dear, yes indeed. Talk about a missed opportunity! Cat, you could have been years into this work by now, but instead it looks like you never got started at all. Well, there's no time like the present. - Surviving

Hey Caterpillar, I forgot to congratulate you on your new baby. Yes, of course WW techniques will work with a more serious prolapse, but it doesn't come with a guarantee, for any of us.

At 7 weeks postpartum you are at a stage where your POPs may get worse for a few months, before the real reversion from pregnancy kicks in. This is simply what happens post birth. We don't know why.

In the second half of this year and the following year you will experience a lot of improvement, because that is what happens after a pregnancy and birth. You can help this along, and prevent further damage by using your posture and adapting your activities to keep your organs from pressing into your vagina. You can read all about postpartum prolapse using the Search box. You have probably already done this.

The choice is yours, Caterpillar. You can either throw your heart into Whole Woman work, as we have encouraged you to, or you can keep on doing nothing, and get no results. Unfortunately, it is as simple as that. Whole Woman techniques can not be done in a half-hearted way and expect results. There are so many aspects to it that just doing one thing is not likely to have much effect.

We cannot tell you if *your* prolapse would have worsened anyway, even if you did do WW techniques religiously, but I know that the progress of *my* prolapses stopped in its tracks as soon as I got started seriously with WW techniques. You have to find this out for yourself. Nobody can do it for you.

What are you waiting for? Don't worry. Nobody is watching to see if you succeed or fail. This is your personal work, to do the best you can with it. If you give it all you've got, and you don't have significant improvement within a couple of years, or don't at least stop it from getting worse, then you can re-assess your options and decide what to do from there. It must have taken some courage to come back for another try. Good on you. :-)

We can only put possibilities in front of you, Caterpillar. If Christine's book and DVD's and our suggestions don't work, then you will have to try whatever else is available, which isn't much. This in itself is good reason for really giving WW techniques a big effort.

Good luck. Keep us posted with your progress. There is a new year starting in a few days. Make it a good one!

Louise :-)

Hi Caterpillar

I remembered your username from some time ago, so I assumed, obviously wrongly, that you already knew quite a bit about the Whole Woman techniques, and about the WW posture, and that you didn't really follow through with all the techniques at the time. Of course, now you have a new baby it is a different situation, but with the same techniques to reduce your symptoms.

You can find out about most things by trawling and Searching these Forums but you will get a much better idea of how to do it all from the book, Saving the Whole Woman, and the DVD, First Aid for Prolapse. If cost is a problem you could save for these materials slowly, one at a time, or see if they are in a library system that you have access to. If you think of what is at stake, the cost of these materials is very small over your life time. I look on them as an investment in my health, rather than a once off cost that I will only benefit from once.

There are WW practitioners now in New York, Pennsylvania, UK near London, Western Australia, and of course, Christine in Albuquerque. Hands on is definitely the best way to learn WW posture.

BTW, yes, the six week checkup is one of those myths. It is for the *doctor* to sign off on the birth process and make sure that all is well with mother and baby, that you have considered your contraception needs post pregnancy. ie, that s/he has finished their Ob job.

All women will experience a degree of 'pelvic laxity' after a full term pregnancy and birth. This is when their body has finally 'matured'. Some women experience no further problems with prolapse, or not for a very long time. Often postpartum POP does not become obvious until after the six week checkup, and any POP prior to that will resolve to a degree in time. There is really no point in Obs drawing more attention to pp POP than necessary. To be flippant about it, this is why Ob's usually practise as Gyn's for older women as well.

In spite of the fact that they say that vaginal birth is the main risk factor for POP, they don't regard postpartum POP as related to the birth. As it often it doesn't even become apparent until after the six week checkup, so the Ob remains oblivious to it until the woman returns, often years later, saying that the laxity continued and turned into POP. He then takes off his Ob hat, and puts on his Gyn hat. Sadly, surgery (and sometimes pessaries) are the only solution that Gyn world can offer a woman, and a woman who is still having babies is not a good candidate for surgical repair. I think this is why they don't even raise surgical repair with a woman who has only just had a baby, and will probably have more.

Simple POP is not a life threatening condition. There is really no reason why an Ob needs to raise it. Often it will revert to a degree of normality that is acceptable to the woman within 2 years of her last birth, without his intervention, but that is a bit of a cop out on the Ob's behalf if her pelvic laxity does turn into full blown POP.

I am afraid that POP is still stigmatised and not spoken about widely enough. A lot of heartbreak would be saved if society was more accepting of it, and was willing to support women with POP instead of sweeping them under the carpet. It is really up to women to challenge Ob Gyns to speak about it openly and to answer women's questions honestly and openly. It is up to women to talk to other women about it, as you did, Caterpillar, withthe women in your family. Only then will the stigma begin to evaporate. Hopefully your aunts are now better informed, and can better inform other women they speak with.

To all women with POP, this has happened to you through no fault of your own, so there is no need to feel ashamed or guilty about it. I know that saying that doesn't wipe the shame and guilt away, but we need to affirm that it is not our fault, and seek to use whatever resources we have at our disposal to normalise it, and heal the symptoms and ourselves, simply because so many women are affected by it. Then the shame and guilt will lose their power over us. They will simply evaporate like a puddle on a sunny day.

Louise

Hi Cat - Christine teaches that the root cause of prolapse is postural, and those of us who have studied her work and incorporated it into our lives know that this is true. That being said, there are many many things that will affect when and how and to what degree it manifests itself......personal habits, diet, childbirth practices and interventions.....No one can say what your course of prolapse would have been if you had adopted posture years ago when you first learned about it from the wonderful women here.

I had very large babies, and I felt bulgy after each birth. It never would have occurred to me to look at my vagina or ask the doctor why I felt this way - what else would one expect after passing a 10-pound watermelon? My bulges went away, and I went back to sucking and tucking and doing my Jane Fonda workouts.....ALL the wrong moves for pelvic support. Approaching menopause, the symptoms were there, and a few years afterwards, WHAM.

With what I have learned here, I'm convinced that my bad posture and exercise habits were the cause of my prolapse. I would love to have learned about and started this work post-partum, or even before having a baby at all. So, yes, I feel that you missed quite an opportunity, and yet, you have another one right now. You are still healing post-partum and that's a great time to incorporate this knowledge. You will need it for the rest of your life. This isn't just about prolapse, but about the health of hips and spine as we age. It is huge. - Surviving

Check the Practitioners tab. There's Carol in the Phila area, and Paula in Brooklyn - Surviving

PS - what is hydrodistention surgery?

Caterpillar, The bleeding would have been very scary for you. I can see where you are coming from, now. Stay with us.

Louise