Mille Schweky:
Hey guys, and welcome back to What They Didn't Tell You: From Core to Floor. It's your girl, Dr. Millie Schwecke, your favorite pelvic floor physical therapist, and today's episode, we're gonna talk about what they didn't tell you after your C-section. It's a solo episode, something that I'm really passionate about, and I'm so excited to just go straight to it. So we're gonna start off by thinking back for a minute. So if you've had a C-section, I wanna know how long ago was it. Maybe it was six weeks ago, six months ago, six years ago. Maybe your kids are teenagers now. Maybe they're married now. But I want you to picture yourself in those first few days after your baby was born, and think about all the information you were given. They probably taught you how to feed your baby, how to change diapers, all the rules of, like, safe sleep, swaddling, and all these things that just kind of, like, come with caring for a newborn. But my question Is who actually taught you how to recover from your surgery? Not just about taking care of your baby, but how to take care of yourself after a major abdominal surgery. Now, when I ask my patients this question, the answer almost always is, "Nobody." And that's what I want to talk about today. Today's episode is not about making anyone feel bad about their birth experience, God forbid, and I'm not telling you that there's one more thing that you need to be doing. I just want you to understand your body, and I want to answer questions that nobody was ever able to answer for you. And I just want to remind you that your recovery deserves attention, too. So over the years, I've worked with probably hundreds of women after C-section at this point, and I just, in the beginning, was noticing the same pattern over and over again, which is that we do such a good job preparing women to take care of their babies, but we don't spend time preparing them on how to recover from a major abdominal surgery called a C-section. So they come home from the hospital, everyone's asking them, "How's the baby?" Which is normal. That's what happens. Your baby deserves all the love and the attention. But very few people ask after a C-section, like, "How are you doing? How's your scar? The incision, are you able to stand up straight? Like, are you experiencing any numbness? Are you feeling disconnected? Um, do you feel it pulling when you reach overhead? Are you scared to touch it?" Like, people in, like, in the healthcare world are not really, you know, paying too much attention to it. So what happens is that these women go home after a major surgery with a newborn in their arms, and they're somehow supposed to figure out everything on their own. And I'm always meeting with these women who are months or even years postpartum, who have been living with symptoms just because nobody ever explained that what they're feeling is common and that there's things that they can do to help. It doesn't have to just fester. So before we get into so many details, I just want to acknowledge this gap That exists because I know so many of you who had C-sections probably wish you never even had to learn about C-section recovery. Maybe this was not part of your birth plan. Maybe you always pictured your birth going differently, and maybe you even, like, still replay parts of your labor in your head, and you're, like, wondering if there's something you could have done that could have changed the outcome. And if that's you, I just want you to know that it's okay. You know, we always hear, "Healthy mom, healthy baby, that's all that matters," but, like, I know people are saying that with the best intentions, and I don't think that's the whole story. Of course, a healthy mom and a healthy baby matters. It matters a lot, but that's not the only thing that matters. Somehow, we've created this idea that if everyone's healthy, then you can't feel disappointed. So if your baby's okay and something happened that you didn't want, just move on, and I don't agree with that. I think you can hold two truths at the same time. You can be deeply grateful that you and your baby are healthy and still wish your birth had gone differently. You can love your baby more than anything in the whole entire world but still be upset about the experience that you wish you had, that you didn't get to have, and those feelings are not mutually exclusive. We can hold space for both of them at the same time. And another thing I want you to know is that your C-section was not your fault. I've had this conversation with so many women over the years, and I heard the same thing over and over again, like, "Oh, I think I would have prepared more, it would've been better. If I went walking more, it would've been better. If I pushed longer. Maybe I made a different decision. If I went into the birth maybe a little bit stronger." And they're, like, replaying their births over and over again, looking for the moment where they think they failed. But a C-section is not a result of weakness, and it's not anything to do with how prepared you were. It's not because you didn't try hard enough, and it's definitely not 'cause your body has something wrong with it. Birth just does not always follow the plan we imagined, and that does not mean that you did anything wrong. And if anyone ever told you that before, I really hope you'll hear this from me today, that it's not your fault And that brings me to my next point, which is when people call it the easy way out, there is nothing easy about recovering from a major abdominal surgery while learning how to take care of this newb- newborn. Women tell me about these comments they get from people after birth, like, "Oh, at least you didn't have to push," and, "Oh, you can just schedule the next one." And, like, I know most people don't mean to be hurtful, but this is not the easy way out, and it's not less than, and it's not a failure. It's simply a different birth. There's a time and a place for it. Sometimes it is a life-saving experience, and it deserves the same respect. You're bringing life into the world. And you know what I also noticed something very interesting, which is that most pregnant women don't spend time learning about C-sections. Do you know that the rate of a C-section in the United States is about 30% or more? It might even be more. And it's not because you're responsible that you're not learning about it. I think that's even, like, a little bit superstitious. You're like, "Oh, I think it's not gonna happen to me, so I'm gonna skip that chapter." Like, I have a C-section chapter in my birth prep online program, The Prepared Pelvis, and I can see that people do skip that chapter some time, and, like, I completely understand it. But the problem is that if your birth dones-- does end in a C-section for one reason or another, then you're suddenly trying to recover from a surgery you've never expected to have, while also learning how to take care of a newborn, and that is so much to process. So if you're already all these minutes into the episode, you understand that I'm very passionate about helping women understand that recovering from a C-section is very different than recovering after a vaginal delivery. It's not better, it's not worse, it's just different. And when someone comes into my office after a C-section, our rehab is going to look very different than someone who had a vaginal delivery, because we're talking about returning Before, sorry, before we're talking about returning to exercise or strengthening our core, we're reconnecting to your breathing. We're helping the brain reconnect to muscles that have been cut through. We're helping your nervous system feel safe again. We're restoring movement, confidence, safety, and I want to emphasize that this isn't just a nice bonus if you have time for it. Like, this is necessary rehab. I think it's insane that you don't just get a prescription a half an hour to just go jump into pelvic floor PT after a C-section. If you had knee surgery, nobody in this world would expect you to figure it out on your own. My patients, when I worked in the orthopedic office, would get a script for PT three times a week for 12 weeks. If you had back surgery, same thing, hip surgery, shoulder surgery, and for some reason, after one of the most common surgeries in the world, we often expect women to simply heal without any guidance, and this never made any sense to me at all. And one of the most common things women tell me is like, "Oh, my scar? Yeah, my scar doesn't really hurt. It just feels weird." I'm like, "I know what you mean." They tell me it feels numb, it feels overly sensitive, and sometimes touching it gives you the weirdest sensation. S- and like in a different spot, like you can touch your scar and feel it in your hip, or sometimes, like, um, it'll feel tight or like it's pulling when you stand up straight, and it's very, very common because your scar is not just your skin. There's a lot of layers under that incision that are healing together, including fascia, connective tissue, you know, muscles, nerves, everything. And the nerves in your skin can recover, but nerve healing is really slow. It could take about 18 months. Like, think about how quickly your hair or your fingernails grow. That's basically the pace we're talking about. It takes time, and you have to understand that What's happening underneath the surface can make symptoms feel so much less scary. Which brings me to my next point. I wanted to talk about the shelf. You know the little shelf, that little pooch that you get on top of the scar? Um, it's not a sign that you're lazy. I think a lot of women walk around thinking, like, they did something wrong. They're not working hard enough, and that's why they have it. It doesn't mean you're weak. It doesn't... It really is just showing how your skin healed with the swelling, adhesions, and scar tissue, and sometimes it's honestly just the way they, like, sewed you back up. Um, and your shelf actually gives us a lot of information. So before we, you know, assume you need to somehow work harder, we need to understand why it's there in the first place, and that's a very big part of what I do. And one of the biggest misconceptions that I see, like, online mostly is that, oh yeah, like, just give birth and start massaging your scar. But the truth is that is not where we start. Most women first need to desensitize the area while it's healing because touching it can be very overwhelming. Some women need to first reconnect with their breathing. Some need to learn how to do gentle movement first. Some need to just learn how to rebuild the trust in their body. Healing from a C-section, healing in general, is not a one-size-fits-all glove, and scar work is so much bigger than just rubbing the incision. It's about helping your body move well again, helping your nervous system feel safe again, and helping you reconnect with a part of your body that so many women avoid because no one ever told them it was normal. Like, I actually had, um, an ovarian cyst They found it during my s- my first pregnancy. It was on my left ovary, I believe, and they told me when I was pregnant that I would have to get it removed postpartum. It was a dermoid cyst, which means it was not going away on its own. And, um, uh, I was about three months postpartum, and I actually felt amazing at three months postpartum. And I had the surgery. They took out the cyst, and it is a tiny little incision, nothing compared to a C-section scar. But they went through my belly button, and they poked two other holes in my lower abdomen, and they were able to get the cyst out. So I know that cyst had, like, skin, teeth, hair, and nails in it, which is, like, kind of wild to me. But anyway, they got it out, and I have this tiny little scar on my belly button. I could not touch it for so long. I felt so disconnected from my abdomen, and I felt so amazing at three months postpartum before the surgery, and I did not feel so amazing after. The recovery was very real, very low, very slow. Um, I actually feel like it changed me a lot. Um, so all the more so kind of a home air, a C-section. It's a major surgery. I couldn't even touch my scar. I had to have my colleagues at work at the time move it, and there was a very long process for me to feel like I can trust my body again. Like, it, you know, I felt like it wronged me for a while. Like, why'd you grow this cyst of random cells? Like, these cells don't belong. Like, hair cells don't belong in my ovary. Like, what were, what were all these things doing there? But over time, I learned how to understand my body's wisdom, the bo- the wisdom that all of our bodies were created with so divinely, and that was a huge part of what brought me to a place of being able to feel the area again. So just if you're listening to this, and this, there's just one thing that I want you to take away from this episode, which is your C-section was not your fault. Your recovery matters, your feelings matter, and you deserve just as much care and attention as your baby does. The more women I work with, the more convinced I become that most of us don't need someone to tell us we're broken. We need someone to explain what's happening because when you understand your body, you stop blaming it and fearing it, and you start trusting it and feeling embodied in it, and that is when rear, wh- when real healing begins. So if today's episode made you realize that no one ever told you these things, I would love to help you continue learning, and I'll just tell you a little bit more about how you can do that before we wrap up the episode, which is with a story about a friend of mine actually, who took my online course called the Scar Release Method. She sent me this message the day after the course, and I really, I just want to read it to you, okay? She writes, "I can't believe it's been one time and I'm already feeling better. I woke up this morning with no low back pain or pain on my insides for the first time in nine years. I just exercised and I feel stronger than ever, and I don't have any back pains. I can't believe it's only from doing this one time. I can't wait to keep on going and practicing this and seeing the results. I legit feel like I'm on cloud nine. I can't believe I went so long in pain thinking it was normal." This is someone I actually know personally. She messaged me a bunch of times about, you know, what she can do for her scar. Um, and then finally when I, you know, came out with this online program, the Scar Release Method, she, you know, she took it and I can't even believe like all of the ways that it affected her. In so many ways, not only from the pain, but she's so much stronger in the gym now, fast-forward. This was like a c- a, a while ago. Um, sex life got better, back pain got better, mobility got better. She became more, uh, just like empowered in her body and more athletic, honestly, and I'm just like really, really happy for her. So this course is actually available to you. It is extremely affordable. Um, it's $97. It's the Scar Release Method, and I basically walk you through everything you need to know that happens in your body during and after a C-section, and then I walk you through a step-by-step process on how to release your scar to get rid of numb pain, tingling, pulling the shelf to improve your core strength, okay? This is really where it's at, and I'm very excited to share it with you. It's on milliedpt.com/scar-release. I'm gonna put the link in the show notes, and I am just very excited to have you join. Like if you're already 15 minutes into a C-section episode, this program is definitely for you. I think it's such a no-brainer. Think about how much money you spend on going out for coffee in a month. It literally, it, it, it doesn't make any sense not to do it, so the link is in the show notes. It's milliedpt.com/scar-release, and I can't wait to see you inside and I can't wait to hear from you and your amazing results
