Swelling After Pregnancy

Swelling After Pregnancy


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Swollen Feet After Pregnancy

For many women swelling after labor is not second-hand experience. This phenomenon is not simply unpleasant, very often swelling after labor is a symptom of serious health problems. If swelling occurs only during the first week after labor and then starts to gradually go away, you may not worry much. The fact here is that organism is simply unable to get rid of the accumulated liquid right away.

Sometimes, this process takes up to 3-4 weeks. This is easy to explain since a young mother gets too busy during this time and the only time when she can have a rest is nighttime. Even at nighttime, she can’t relax completely. Consequently, physiological processes, including blood circulation and lymph stream, do not manage to get back to normal.

Reasons for Swelling After Labor

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If swelling doesn’t go away for a longer time, there may be more serious reasons for it. For example, disorder of kidneys functioning or development of a chronic disease: during the course of pregnancy kidneys experience big load and after labor their functioning may not get back to normal. Nowadays it often happens.

One more reason is a progressing varicose veins disease which is also not that rare. In case of many pregnant women, veins duffer severely and, after labor, stable swelling may be present. You’d better start treating veins right away.

In cases mentioned above, there is a need to go to experts – urologist, phlebologist etc. When varicosis only begins to develop, it’s recommended to have rest more often. You are to lie and try to lie your legs as high as possible. You may make special baths for legs, follow a certain diet including in your food ration products that dilute blood.

By the way, unhealthy eating and improper way of life are considered to be the most frequent reasons for swelling after labor. After labor, many women think that they are now allowed to eat everything they were forbidden to eat during the course of pregnancy. Especially those women who are not breastfeeding stick to this opinion. In such cases, women often start to enjoy their life to the fullest allowing themselves to eat salty, smoked or fried dishes and products.

Of course, having eaten something of these they often drink a lot of water. Actually, they don’t only drink tea or coffee, but also sweet fuzzy drinks. On the background of the lack of vitamins and minerals, that are spent in abundant amounts during the course of pregnancy, such like way of eating can cause negative changes in the blood structure. Blood gets thicker and it leads to the problems mentioned – diseases of kidneys, varicosis etc.

If you want to get your organism back to normal after labor, fully recover all its functions and prevent the occurrence of the swelling, you’d better eat boiled, stewed or baked foods. You’d better eat foods with minimal amount of salt and drink herbal tea, not sweet stewed fruit or clean water without gas, including mineral water. You’d better plan your DIY so that you have pauses in between. In other words, you shouldn’t constantly work. It’s necessary to have a rest several times while you are doing the work around the house. Swelling won’t go away if your body is constantly in vertical position.

Sometimes, swelling occurs on the background of the increased blood pressure. As a rule, in such like cases your head stats to ache. However, this doesn’t always happen. You should be more attentive to yourself.

How to Get Rid of Swelling After Labor

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If swelling is not caused by any pathological state, you can get rid of it yourself. Even though most part of a day a young mother spends on her legs, there is a need to walk and breathe fresh air more in order to improve blood circulation. Walking leisurely is not the same as attending from one house chore to the other one.

Massaging legs with ice also helps to eliminate swelling. You’d better use herbal decoctions here: chamomile, milfoil, sage etc.

Transition douche is a great method. You end it with cold water and rub your legs with tough towel. You may apply anti-swelling cream with horse chestnut extract, hazel or menthol extracts, shea butter (almond or jojoba oil), with vitamins or minerals. Nowadays, there is a big choice of these.

Warm baths with herbal decoctions or sea salt also eliminate swelling. You may take Melissa, marjoram, nettle, burdock, leaves of birch etc. You should wear soft footwear that you’re convenient in. You shouldn’t sit with your legs crossed – this makes blood circulation worse.

Easy regular exercises also help to get blood and lymph circulation back to normal and, as a result, swelling goes away really fast. In the morning, right after you wake up, do “cycle” exercise for 1-2 minutes. You should raise your legs as high as possible. The longer you manage to do the exercise, the faster will your blood circulation improve. However, you shouldn’t strain your muscles too much.

When you finish the exercise, go on keeping your legs up, spin your feet to the left and to the right, as if you’re drawing a circle with a thumb. From time to time, you should do “standing” exercise for legs: stepping from heel to toes or light jumps – stand on your toes for several seconds and then jump lightly 5-10 times.

Here is one more easy and fun exercise: sit down on a chair (sofa, armchair) and try to take a small ball or a pencil that is lying on the floor with your bare toes. You may also take herbal decoctions that are known to have a diuretic action effect. These are decoctions of field horsetail, leaves of a white birch, dill, parsley, barren myrtle etc.

Drugs Against Swelling

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We should devote a separate article to speak about diuretic action drugs and how to take them. Of course, it’s not so easy for a woman who has a small baby and lots of DIY to attend to find time for preparing herbal decoctions and tinctures. It’s easier to go to a drug store and buy pills with a diuretic action effect. It’s easy to take them – you do it with a small amount of water. The pills start to “work” rather fast – after 10-15 minutes you are to go to the toilet.

However, you should be serious when taking such like drugs – they are to be prescribed by a doctor since in any particular case a certain drug is to be prescribed. The thing is that such like drugs have a different functioning scheme. Some drugs contribute to the accumulation of potassium in the organism; others start to actively getting it out. Among such like drugs, there is a widely known Furosemide that starts to work really fast. It has a number of side effects. Actually, it has a negative influence on the work of heart. Still, it’s very popular, many patients prescribe it to themselves preferring not to think about the consequences.

There are milder drugs, for example, Trifas that almost doesn’t get potassium and calcium out of the organism and is several times more effective than Furosemide. Besides, once Furosemide is cancelled, very often there is a ricochet effect: the absorption of water gets increased and it’s once again accumulated inside and outside the cells. Trifas doesn’t have any of these disadvantages, but it’s more expensive than any of such like drugs that are usually used in medicine.

Canephron is considered to be safe almost in any cases. It’s forbidden to take only if there is a case of personal intolerance. It’s a plant based drug that includes rosemary, centaury, briar and lovage. Its action is so mild that it can even be prescribed to pregnant women and infants. It will not only eliminate swelling, but also have an anti-inflammatory effect. Besides, it will make you feel considerably better in general. The cost of it is not high and you for sure can afford it.

Actually, you need to consult your doctor even if it’s about taking a safe drug. Of course, it’s forbidden to start taking on yourself more aggressive diuretic action drugs. The fact is that for the organism of a woman that hasn’t yet managed to fully recover even a minimal dose of chemical drug may be really harmful and it may become a reason for the development of a chronic disease.

Postpartum Swelling

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