Postpartum Recovery: 1st Week Home

What Hurts:

• You'll have painful uterine contractions, especially during nursing.
• Your breasts are full of milk, engorged and leaking.
• The area of your episiotomy or tear is still sore. You won't want to go horseback riding soon!

What Works:

• You can move around a lot easier without carrying baby, placenta and amniotic fluid.
• Muscles are still sore.
• Maternity clothes may still be the most comfortable to wear.

What Doesn't Work:

• Your legs are still swollen.
• You leak urine or stool and can't control it.

What Spells Trouble:

• Bleeding gets heavier, or you pass blood clots.
• You get red streaks or hard spots in your breasts.
• You develop a fever.

It's OK If:

• You don't keep up with the housework.
• You cry, sigh or laugh for no reason.
• You ask for help from friends and family.

Don't Look Now, But . . .

• You look a little pregnant from the side.
• You still are carrying some of the extra weight you gained during pregnancy.

Remember to:

• Make baby's first appointment with the doctor.
• Have baby added to your insurance policy. There may be a time limit for this, so don't delay.
• Keep important "baby" documents together, such as the birth certificate, immunization record (when you get it at baby's first pediatrician's visit) and his social security card.
• Make your 6-week postpartum checkup appointment.
• Plan on making daycare arrangements, if you haven't started already.

Call in the Troops:

• Give your partner a job or assignment to help you and to make him feel useful.
• Contact La Leche League, if you are having any problems with breastfeeding.

Stop and Smell the Roses:

• Have you ever seen a cuter baby?

Red Light, Green Light

• Red Light—Avoid exercise and sex. Don't use tampons to deal with lochia (bleeding).
• Green Light—Do your Kegel exercises.

Postpartum Recovery: 2nd Week Home