If you’ve undergone a C-section, try this to ease your pain

Giving birth to someone whom you carried for the last nine months is miraculous. Vaginal birth is the nature’s way of bringing the baby out in this world but there are some situations where natural birth is not safe for the baby and mother. In such situations, babies are delivered by cesarean section. After this commonly performed C-section surgery, a lot of women experience scar pain for a much longer time. But they don’t know what can be done for it. And they live with it due to lack of awareness about scar mobilization after C-section.

A cesarean section is the surgical procedure in which baby is delivered through an incision in the abdominal wall and uterus rather than through the pelvis and vagina. The incision can be vertical (up and down) or transverse (side to side) depending on the condition of mother and the fetus.

How to take care of the scar after C-section?

Post surgery, the incisions take time to heal and it usually takes 6-8 weeks. Its okay to feel some pain while your scars are healing but they should not hurt after 12 weeks. During the process of healing, scar tissue begins to form to bring the layers together. Scar tissue is not what you can see on the skin but it goes into deeper layers below the skin.

Scar tissue is made up of the same protein as the tissues it replaces but the difference lies in the direction and pattern of the collagen fibre. In normal tissue, the fibre goes in varying directions, while in scar tissue it is in linear single direction. So because of it, it has less mobility and does function in the same way as normal tissue do.

So, taking care of the scar is important, specifically in C-section because the muscles in abdominal wall are weakened up. As the fascia of rectus abdominus, internal obliques and transverse abdominus are being cut and these are very important core muscles that covers our abdominal organs, low back and pelvis.

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Problems that can arise from scar tissue are:

* Pain and soreness on and around the scar
* Difficulty in bending forward and lifting something heavy.
* Pulling pain while standing up and during overhead activities.
* Low back pain due to weakened core.
* Superficial nerve irritation around the scar.
* Affect urinary frequency and urgency.

How does scar mobilization after C-section work?

So, scar mobilization is a manual technique to improve the skin stretch and sensitivity around the scar. It will also reduce pain and improves the function. It will help in remodeling the scar tissue and breaks up the adhesion that are affecting the movement.

The earliest one can start is at two weeks after the C-section with gentle stroking over the scar. This helps in the nerve regeneration. After that scar mobilization at 3-4 weeks around the scar and at 6 weeks on the scar but make sure the scar should be well healed. Along with this we can also start with muscle reactivation and strength training.