Postpartum & newborn care

What recovery actually looks like

The weeks after birth get far less attention than the months before it, and the result is that a lot of entirely normal recovery comes as a surprise — along with some things that are not normal and need a phone call.

Bleeding carries on for several weeks and tapers, going from red to brown to lighter. Afterpains, the cramping as the uterus contracts back down, are often stronger with a second or third baby and tend to show up during feeding. Stitches, whether from a tear or a caesarean, are sore in a way that improves week by week rather than day by day. Sweating at night, hair falling out a few months later and feeling emotional around day three to five are all common and all pass.

The things that warrant contacting someone the same day: bleeding that soaks a pad in an hour or passes large clots, a temperature, a wound that becomes hot or smells, pain or swelling in one calf, chest pain or breathlessness, a severe headache or visual changes, or blood pressure problems that continue after birth. Preeclampsia can appear for the first time after delivery, which is the part people are least often told.

Mental health deserves the same plainness. Low mood in the first week or so is extremely common and usually lifts. Depression or anxiety that settles in, deepens, or starts later — it can begin at any point in the first year — is a medical condition with good treatments and is not a verdict on you as a parent. Intrusive thoughts about harm are both commoner and more treatable than most people realise, and are worth saying out loud to a professional rather than carrying.

Checks after birth have moved on from the single six-week appointment. The current recommendation is contact within the first few weeks and a fuller review by around twelve, because the problems that appear in this period rarely wait that long to start.