5 Questions to Ask Your Provider After Birth
Throughout your pregnancy, you can expect to see your healthcare provider around fifteen times if you are in good health and you aren’t experiencing any complications. You spend the better part of a year preparing for the arrival of your baby and getting checkups along the way.
And then you give birth.
For many individuals, the only appointment for the birthing person doesn’t come until the standard six-week checkup, and it's amazing how quickly life after delivery is focused only on your new baby, making it easy to forget to care for yourself.
If waiting a month and a half (or more, depending on scheduling availability) feels like too long to see your provider after birth, you’re not alone. Try to schedule something at two or four weeks postpartum. Medical providers can easily forget how transformative an experience it is to have a baby because they see it from a completely different perspective.
Whenever it is that you go in for the appointment, I have some questions to consider asking various postpartum care providers to make sure you don’t lose yourself in the dizzying fog that is life with a newborn. Make note of these questions and go to your appointment prepared. (It might be a good idea to give the provider’s office a heads-up that you have questions and that your visit will likely take longer than the few minutes usually allotted for these sorts of follow-ups.)
Can we talk about my birth experience? You could share that you’d like your provider to explain why certain choices were made throughout your labor and birthing process and you could ask for your chart to help process how you feel regarding the experience. Many people create a birth plan or a birth preferences list and if you were one of those people but your experience deviated quite a bit from what you hoped for, knowing why things happened the way that they did can help bring closure to the process and equip you for what you hope to experience or avoid in the future.
Can you check how my_______ is healing? Something like this might seem standard for this type of visit, but often patients aren’t even undressing at their six-week appointment. If you had a cesarean, ask your provider to look at your incision. If you had a vaginal birth, ask your provider to look at your vulva, labia, and any part of the vaginal tissue that had a tear or needed to be repaired.
How long should the healing time be for ______ and what stages of healing should I expect? For example, you would want to know if seepage is to be expected from a healing incision when stitches dissolve, what the tissue around a cesarean scar will feel like in the earliest months after birth, how long to expect a burning sensation while urinating, etcetera. Many times a birthing person is inundated with information when they’re discharged from the hospital about what to expect and when to call for help, but very little of that is usually retained.
Can I look in a mirror with you at the area you are discussing? For example, it could be helpful to use a hand mirror to see any perineal tears to understand better their thoughts on healing and give you an idea of how things are looking down there.
Can you refer me to pelvic floor therapy? If you are using insurance-based care, asking for a referral to other providers is a good idea, especially if you can find one in-network. If you aren’t sure why pelvic floor therapy could be helpful, still ask your provider about this, but also ask them to explain why/how seeing this type of specialist can aid postpartum healing. Some practices make a habit of referring their patients out for this sort of care, but many do not. Even if you’re not using insurance-based care, seeking help from a pelvic health specialist is really wise to get a second opinion about how you’re healing post-birth and get tips for how best to navigate through life now that your body has brought forth new life. Despite what many birthing people are told, “peeing a little” when you jump, laugh, or sneeze is not biologically normal and there are many ways to strengthen the pelvic floor after childbirth.
Come back again soon for more questions to consider asking at your postpartum visit!
