Why You Have Vaginal Pain After Delivery?

After child birth, your entire body is sore. It is hard to distinguish one kind of postnatal pain from another for at least a week after your baby is born. First of all, you are on pain killers that numbs the pain. And when you are not numb, every inch of your body hurts with distinction. But as few days pass by, you may start to distinguish a severe to moderate vaginal pain.

This vaginal pain in the postnatal period is going to be there with you for sometime. You are certainly more prone to this kind of postnatal pain if you have had a vaginal birth. There are many causes of postnatal vaginal pain. Almost all are linked to vaginal birth in general.

Here are some reasons due to which you may experience vaginal pain after childbirth.

The Pressure

A vaginal delivery puts enormous pressure on the area between the rectum and the vagina. Although your vagina is dilating, the baby's head may not be able to come out without putting tremendous pressure on your vaginal area. This pressure leaves some trauma in the muscles around your vagina. This can cause swelling and some pain for weeks after the delivery.

Muscle Tear

Sometimes the pressure exerted by the baby's head is too much for the vagina to bear. This results in a slight tear around the vagina. This tear is usually just on the skin or at epidermal level. It will heal on its own in a week or so. The pain you feel in your vagina due to this muscle tear is moderate and gives you trouble to pee or pass faeces.

Episiotomy

In some cases, the vagina does not dilate enough to let the baby's head out. This is very common in face of first pregnancy. So the doctor has no choice but to conduct an episiotomy. Basically, the doctor makes a cut near your vagina to help the baby come out. An episiotomy involves both skin and muscle cut and thus requires stitches to heal. It may take up to a month for your vagina to heal if it has to be a medical cut.

These are some of the common reasons why you may experience vaginal pain after childbirth. In case you opt for a C-section delivery, it is less likely that you will face any of this. The pain in case of c-section deliveries is concentrated around the abdomen. Tell us what you did to relieve the postnatal vaginal pain is you too experienced it.