A Woman’s Body After Birth: Lochia

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Very little is written about the changes in a woman’s body after birth. As many of the changes are ‘messy’ or make women feel embarrassed, woman are reluctant to discuss them, even if their closest friends. In the second of a multi-part series, Jodi Cleghorn looks at the bleeding women experience after birth.

Lochia

All women have a discharge called lochia after birth, something midwives describe as “the weeping of the womb.’(1) Lochia is a combination of blood, mucus and tissue that is first mixed with blood, much like a period, beginning as a heavy flow (lochia rub’ra) and becoming lighter and brownish over time (lochia sero’sa, ending as a yellowish-white or clear discharge (lochia al’ba).(2) Women are aware that they will bleed after birth, but many women are unprepared for just what sort of bleeding it is. “When I gave birth to my eldest daughter, I remember really noticing the amount of blood that was coming out of me, and how much substance it had,” says Belinda of her first birth 13 years ago. “I can actually remember going to the toilet and feeling it come out – it landing on the inside of my vagina. I was just expecting it to be very watery, like menstrual blood. I had to have a good look at it because I could not believe the amount of substance that it had.”

After birth, the uterus has an open wound where the placenta has detached and like any wound it needs to bleed in order to create a protective covering to heal. Medical texts state that the initial “heavy period’ stage lasts for around ten days, and continues for around six weeks similar to a normal period. Personal experience changes from woman to woman but it is generally agreed that the more rest a new mother gets in the first month the less violent and protracted the bleeding will be. There is also a growing body of medical and anecdotal evidence that women bleed less and for a shorter period of time with a physiological third stage, compared with a managed one.

This was the case with Annie. “I was induced with my first birth and after my son was born I was given “another shot’, and then they pulled my placenta out. It felt like someone was ripping octopus tentacles from inside me. I bled heavily for eight weeks afterward, blood gushing in torrents from me every time I stood up and passing huge clots the size of a calf’s liver. The first time I passed a clot in the hospital shower the nurse told me it was normal,” says Annie. “My daughter’s birth by comparison was a drug-free natural birth and I held her while I waited for the placenta to come away. I bled for a couple of days after and had no discharge after a week.”

The length of bleeding and amount of bleeding can be determined by the type of birth she had (and especially whether she had a managed or physiological third stage), the size of the baby, whether there was a post partum haemorrhage and the amount of rest a woman has in the first month after birth.

While every woman’s journey is her own, the intensity, duration and feelings a woman has towards her bleeding after birth are what makes her experiences uniquely her own.

References

1. Private correspondence between author and Elizabeth Lotscher, July 2008.
2. Lochia: bleeding and delivery at Gyn(ob).com 

Yoni Yearning and Checking Changes are used with the permission of Annie Evett

Jodi Cleghorn is a mother, writer and editor, feminist and social geographer. Jodi is the co-author of Reclaiming Sex After Childbirth: the survival guide with Annie Evett, who she co-owns the Reclaim Sex After Birth website. Jodi lives in Brisbane, Australia with her partner Dave, son Dylan, the fish of Bo and Keats the Cat.

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