If you need stitches For most women, these tears are minor and heal quickly. If you need stitches for a tear or episiotomy after you've had your baby, your midwife will probably be able to do those in your home. If you have a serious tear, you'll be transferred to hospital.
Deliver in an upright, nonflat position.
There are a number of delivery positions that might reduce the risk of a vaginal tear during childbirth. Rather than lying down flat during delivery, deliver in an upright position. Your health care provider will help you find a comfortable and safe delivery position.
Most stitches can be stitched up at home by your midwife. However, if you have some severe tearing, your placenta has not come away properly or if there are any complications with you or your baby, you may need to be transferred to hospital.
Midwives are allowed to repair 1st and 2nd degree tears. These are more minor injuries that only involve the perineal skin and muscles. A midwife should be trained how to repair these tears, which involves giving the patient adequate pain relief and stitching the injury back together with dissolvable sutures.
Up to 9 in every 10 first time mothers who have a vaginal birth will experience some sort of tear, graze or episiotomy. It is slightly less common for mothers who have had a vaginal birth before. For most women, these tears are minor and heal quickly.
The episiotomy tradition
Experts believed an incision would heal better than a natural tear. The procedure was also thought to help preserve the muscles and connective tissue that support the pelvic floor. Today, however, research suggests that routine episiotomies don't prevent these problems after all.
A tear is usually healed in about 4 to 6 weeks. This care sheet gives you a general idea about how long it will take for you to recover. But each woman recovers at a different pace. Follow the steps below to feel better as quickly as possible.
Superficial tears look somewhat like a frayed edge on the cufflike cervix. Deeper lacerations usually cause serious bleeding immediately before or after delivery of the placenta, and these lacerations must be repaired promptly. In general, small cervical lacerations are not repaired, since they heal spontaneously.
Some people describe the feeling as being like intense period cramps, others say it feels like a tightening or pounding feeling in your uterus or across your belly, others describe the feeling as being like very intense muscle cramps, while still other people describe contractions as being like the sort of wrenching ...
Birth can be messy, and you'll need to be prepared with clean towels and plastic sheets. The good news is that the majority of home birth professionals will clean up for you after the baby is born, so you and your family won't need to worry about it. In the event of an emergency, you'll need to get to a hospital.
Most women and their babies are absolutely fine after an emergency home birth (Clarke and Carr 2014). However, if there's a complication with the delivery of the placenta, or you need extra care after the birth, you may need to be transferred to hospital (Clarke and Carr 2014, Ford and Pett 2008, Jones 2009).
"It's very hard to determine which patients are going to have an obstetric emergency," Ghaffari says. In fact, somewhere between 23 and 37 percent of first-time moms attempting home birth end up transferring to a hospital, largely because the baby is unable to move through the birth canal.
Delivering in a squatting or other non-supine position has numerous potential benefits for both you and baby. They include: fewer injuries to the perineum (tearing, etc.)
Preventing a perineal tear
The midwife will ask you to stop pushing and to pant or puff a couple of quick short breaths, blowing out through your mouth. This is so your baby's head can emerge slowly and gently, giving the skin and muscles of the perineum time to stretch without tearing.
Deep squats help relax and lengthen the pelvic floor muscles and stretch the perineum. Stand with your legs wider than hip width. Slowly squat down as far as you can go with your hands pressed together in front of you. Your physical therapist can talk with you about how often and how many deep squats you should do.
The most common and obvious sign of a bruised cervix is pain. However, this injury can sometimes come with other symptoms. For example, some women report symptoms of bleeding, spotting, nausea, and back pain with a bruised cervix. These symptoms are more common the more aggressive the sexual intercourse was.
Cervical avulsion injuries (CAIs) are uncommon but potentially life threatening.
Cervical pain may feel like vague pelvic discomfort, making it difficult to identify on your own. If you have a cervix injury or infection, you might notice symptoms like: Pain with sex. Bleeding between menstrual periods.
Laboring down is the process of not actively pushing once the second stage of labor and intense contractions begin. Some people wait one to two hours before pushing, which allows the baby to naturally move down the birth canal. Laboring down has risks and benefits.
Most women will feel increased pressure in their perineum, rectum, and low back at this stage. For many women, the rectal pressure feels the same as having a bowel movement. As the baby's head begins to appear, you may feel a stretching or burning sensation.
The most common description of the level of pain experienced was extreme menstrual cramps (45 percent), while 16 percent said it was like bad back pain and 15 percent compared it to a broken bone.
From 35 weeks onwards, you or your partner can use daily perineal massage until your baby is born which may reduce your risk of tearing. This is particularly beneficial for first-time mothers. You may choose to ask your partner to help you with this.
In general, most people experience more difficulty, pain, and longer recovery times with cesarean birth than with vaginal, but this is not always the case. Sometimes, vaginal birth that was overly difficult or caused extensive tearing can be just as, if not more, challenging than c-section.
Mothers who receive episiotomies – an incision at the vaginal opening to create more room as a baby's head appears – are more likely to suffer severe complications than if they had been allowed to tear naturally.