I am having my second c-section in three weeks. And I am so scared. I just don’t. Want. To. Have. Surgery.

For context I had an emergency c-section 3,5 years ago. Perfectly calm labor, very effective concractions, everything was going well and I was just about to push and then BAM! My daughters heartrate fell off a cliff and they did an emergency c-section on me. It only took 20 minutes from when the c-section was called to when baby was out. That includes transportation from delivery room to the operation room, anestesia, opening and getting my daughter out. At that time she was so far down in my pelvis that they really struggled with getting her out and they had to make extra incisions in my uterus to loosen the deathgrip vacuum my uterus was making. I was awake and everything in me just shut off and I just tried to be the “perfect patient” and totally shut off my emotions.

They told me the next day that I should have a c-section next time because of all the scar tissue in my uterus. They’re scared my uterus will rupture if I go into labour.

I am just so scared. I know that it is in some aspects totally irrational, but I just can’t seem to “get over it”. I have talked to doctors, midwives, other women with similar experiences, a therapist who is also a midwife and I still just have this overwhelming dread just by the thought of having another c-section.

I am so sad, frustrated and ashamed. I really want my second baby’s birth to be a joyful event but I am SO scared… The doctors and midwives are all so kind and understanding, but nothing seems to help me. Today I cried for over an hour.

Looking for a bit of consolation and advice from other women who have experienced somthing similar….

I’m 5 months pp, no complications, the scar no longer hurts, doing my daily scar massages but my abdominal muscles take soooooo long to recover.

I’m working with a physiotherapist and I try to do daily exercises for it and my pelvic floor, but I’m usually so tired in the evening I stop at just scar massage. I feel it gets better overtime but very slowly, I still have slightly visible line on my stomach.

My physio said I’ll need to wait till I’m 6 months pp to get into some real training but I don’t think I will be ready even by then.

How long did it take for you? Did you do anything in particular or will my core get better naturally with time?

my bf finished inside and im only 5 weeks post c section, we’re buying a plan b should i be worried it won’t work?

Hello! My baby is 10 months old, I don’t have my cycle back yet, and I had a not planned cesarean section. However, sometimes for 1-1,5 day I get terrible cramps like the first pains of the labor, before that I only had minor or sometimes bigger cramps as a teenager, but that was different. I noticed that it's not consistently occurs like a period "every month", but every 3-6 weeks. It’s not just a pain, sometimes I can't even get up. After these 1-1.5 days everything goes on the same way. Has this happened to anyone? They said a women won’t have any big cramps after giving birth… or is it something else like IBS, or worse?

Does digestion ever return to normal after a csection? I'm 4 weeks postpartum and it feels like things are slowing down and not as regular as before csection.

TW: miscarriage

Hi, I’m looking for stories of isthmocele repair and if you had the Laparoscopic or Hysteroscopic surgery.
From my understanding, the laparoscopic is much more invasive, longer recovery time, and you have to wait 6 months to conceive. While hysteroscopic isn’t a full repair, more of a shaving down, but immediate recovery and you only have to wait 3 months to conceive.

I had two miscarriages in August of 2025 and in May of 2026 which was life threatening due to blood loss and ended up being hospitalized for 3 days and got 4 units of blood. So I need to have a surgical repair. I have my meeting for surgical planning tomorrow but would love to hear first hand experience.

There are my questions for the surgeon, please let me know if you have any advice or ideas of other questions to ask. My c section was in March of 2024 and I had a vaginal birth Sept 2022.

- Does either surgery make the next pregnancy high risk / less of a candidate for a VBAC

- Prolonged spotting during period/ AVB has stopped so that won’t be good indication of if procedure was successful - is repeat sonohysterogram as follow up a good idea?

- My OB confident the isthmocele is what caused last 2 miscarriages with the one in May life threatening, concerned that will happen again with the less invasive surgery

Thank you everyone

Hi all. I'm due for my section on the 14th. Is there anything I should buy to aid recovery? I hear belly binders are good to have. Any suggestions for which brands in particular (UK based)?

Scar oil? Flannels? Let me know what helped you heal and keep a strong core ❤️

hello im 20F and i dont know if this is the right subreddit to post but if you have had a c section, pls advise.

not pregnant nor had a baby but my OB cut me up like i had a c section because i had my ovarian cyst taken out. my aunt who had a c section before told me she couldn't walk properly for MONTHS and im so scared. i think im too young for this. i dont know what to do. i keep crying rn because im scared that if i move it might harm the incision. this is my first time going under operation and i have a belly binder on to help with the cut but im still scared.

pls advise how i can manage or how i can help make the cut heal faster.

im a working student and my job gave me 2 months to rest, my uni gave me 1 month.

thank you.

Hi mamas, I am five weeks postpartum on my second C-section. My first one was an emergency C-section and I recovered reallly quickly after a week I was feeling a lot better and progressively held up fast. The second C-section recovery has been really rough. I felt better at 2 weeks. However, be even weeks 3 to 5 I’ve just been in consistent pain. I didn’t push myself more or anything. It’s pretty debilitating. I can’t walk for more than 5 to 10 minutes in the house without being in a lot of pain and I can’t hold my baby for long either because it puts pressure on my belly which affects my pain. I know this is a major abdominal surgery and I’m trying to be hopeful, but I’m feeling anxious now that I won’t get better as dramatic as that sounds. The pain is on the left side above my incision. It feels like a sunburn very sensitive and localized, but that’s manageable, under that feels like a deeper, pulling, sometimes sharp, cramping deep pain. The doctor said the incision looks good and it’s not infected. I had a CT scan done and a transvaginal and abdominal ultrasound. All came back clear, although that’s good news, it makes me feel anxious that there’s no real answer to what feels like debilitating pain. Did anyone else go through something similar and get better ?

I could use advice or encouragement :(

I wish I could say my experience was good. I had my c-section Tuesday and the spinal was okay. I was supposed to have it at 10 and ended up having it at 3. During the c-section I didn’t even get to hold my baby at all and the Pitocin gave me such bad muscle pains I could barely lift my feet into my flip flops the next few days and I still have muscle pains today. On the OR table my whole face and arms and body I’m assuming was throbbing so much my world was going in and out of being blurry (as they were stitching me up). My blood pressure was dangerously high. After they got the baby out my husband held her and showed her to me and in less than a minute they had to go and I was alone. It was miserable. The nurses were miserable and wouldn’t give me medicine either. They would ask how badly I was hurting from 1-10 then say I was making it up in my head. I cried for days.. tried breast feeding though their LC was absolutely terrible. Pushing my baby on my belly instead of showing me the side lying position I could hold her in or the football position. So I was in extreme pain. The nurses said if I wanted medicine I had to walk up and down the hall for them to see. I sobbed because I couldn’t move to get out of bed at this point..and they laughed and said it was all in my head and they had c-sections 26 years ago and they weren’t like this but still feels the pain. My mother had to come to the hospital and bring me medicine secretly because I couldn’t sleep and all I did was cry. Bathroom trips were miserable. It was terrible.

The day I was discharged a nurse I hadn’t met before showed me they had breast pumps i couldve used the entire time since I wasn’t comfortable with my baby on my belly. Everything was so miserable and the room reeked of old period blood. It was coming from the shower drains🤢🤮 I wouldn’t recommend this experience to anyone.

I feel like everywhere I look everyone’s having their babies at 37 weeks if they are diabetic. I have type two diabetes - it’s not just gestational. I’m also on insulin (night time - long acting).

I’m scheduled for 38+6 as everything has been fine with his growth, fluid, anatomy, etc…. nothing has been flagged other than me being a diabetic. My sugars are in range and I have twice weekly NSTs.

I saw a terrifying TikTok yesterday about someone making it to their C-section only to discover terrible news.

I can’t stop spiraling about this. My doctors don’t see any reason to move it up since everything has been checking out. But I just feel so uncomfortable going that far. I’m 34 weeks and just scared.

ETA: this planned C-section is a repeat since I had an emergency c section the first pregnancy. They will not induce due to risk of rupture

Hi! I have a scheduled c section in November and trying to set my life up to be as recovery-friendly as possible. I’ve heard of people using bed rails to get out of bed but also have had a couple people mention getting a walker to put next to the bed because it will have the added bonus of being able to move around the house with me for other times I need to get up and down in those first weeks. Thoughts on which you all think is more useful/what you personally found most useful? TIA!

Wednesday I'll be 4 weeks post cesarean section (31F). This was my 2nd c section. First being emergent, this one planned.

I ended up in the ER with a small amount of pinkish drainage. They put me on an antibiotic and told me to follow up with OB this week. I go today for a check. I just generally feel awful this time around. Recovery has been so hard for me mentally amd physically it feels like. Having a toddler and a newborn and trying to keep up with house and packing lunches and dinner, etc. I don't have available help during the day from anyone and have been that way since week 2. I had bad ppd, anxiety, and rage with my first and it took 2 years for me to decide I wanted another one. I thought I was safe from the pp scaries this time around but now I'm feeling like I can't stop crying and my mind is wandering and I feel alone and sad.

I guess I just want to know that I'm not alone and wondering if others have experienced a harder recovery the second time around?

For the context i did not have a c section BUT i did have my endo removed, so the scar is the same as a c-section one. After i showered i noticed a red dot on my scar, like my skin has been scratched? I really dont think its something serious since it doesn’t hurt, it’s not red around the area, it’s not sore and i don’t have a fever, which an infection would usually indicate. Will it heal on its own and should i turn to a professional to look at it?

10 months postpartum and still very much numb at the incision site BUT I can feel an itch! And when I go to scratch, I can never relieve the sensation. It drives me NUTS! Does anyone else still have this problem?

I kinda just wanted to talk about my experience and I would feel insane bringing it up to a lot of the people in my personal life.

I went into an induction scared shitless because labor and childbirth was one of my absolute greatest fears. I was terrified that I or my baby would die, I was scared of the recovery, I was scared of EVERYTHING. I had actually wanted to plan for a c section but couldn't for insurance reasons, so, to make sure I didn't spontaneously go into labor an hour away from my birthing hospital, I had an induction at 39 weeks when I was 0% effaced and 0cm dilated. I was actually so closed and my skin is so thick that when they inserted the Foley balloon, my cervix bent the wire, which the doctor and nurses said was a first for all of them. They broke my water early the next morning, and after 8 hours I was no more dilated than I was when they broke my water. I could've waited because neither my baby nor I were having any real issues, but my doctor said that she doubted I would have the baby that day if I stuck to a vaginal delivery.

I was already tired of laboring and wanted it to be over with and wanted to hold my baby, so I immediately agreed to a c section. The nurses told me that it was okay if it was an emotional decision for me and that a lot of women cried which was okay too, but I was just freaking relieved that it was about to be over and that I didn't have to deliver vaginally. I was not scared. I was shaking and crying from the medications they had administered to me, but it wasn't out of fear. This felt insane to me even at the time and everyone felt the need to reassure me so I let them. The only time I was scared during the entire thing was when they said that my baby was out and I couldn't hear him crying, but then he cried and everything was fine again for me.

I was dreading the healing process because both my mom and SIL had told me that the recovery sucked, and it really didn't help that my son was born on Thursday and my fiance had to go back to work on Tuesday. Now don't get me wrong, it was far from fun and I was in a lot of pain, but it wasn't (intense) vaginal pain which I realized later is entirely what I was scared of.

This is not ordinary, but I healed super well. Most women say that they were in a lot of pain for weeks on end, but by the time my 20 count of prescription strength acetaminophen and 30 count of prescription strength ibuprofen were out, I was in such minimal pain I was forgetting to take them. I was in so little pain by 4 weeks that when a family emergency happened, I was able to help my parents watch my sister's 5 kids for a couple of days.

My mom says that even now, 21 years after her last c section, she still can feel her scar sometimes when she laughs too hard or if the weather is stormy, but I don't even feel it anymore. Maybe my doctor is just incredible at what she does (and that's very likely as she's been doing this since before I was born), but my scar is so thin you kinda have to search for it. I was expecting to hold onto some baby weight for god knows how long because that's how it happened for my sister, but I actually weigh less than before I got pregnant now. I was scared that ppd was going to completely swallow me because I have a history of depression and ppd was BAD for my mom and sister, but my mental health has been better in the past 7 weeks than it has in the last 7 years.

Really, I struck gold in a thousand ways, between my healing, my mental health, and even my baby. He's a big boy and has been sleeping 4-6 hour stretches since week 2 and just started sleeping through the night. He hardly cries unless he's hungry or gassy or wants to move. He's so unconcerned by loud noises, that when he was unfazed by my parents' very loud dogs at 4 weeks, I briefly wondered if he was deaf, but that was quickly disproven when he would start looking in the direction of my voice when someone else held him. I wanted to exclusively pump from the very beginning and never even tried to latch, and I've had a healthy oversupply since my milk came in.

All of this to say, I understand that I am VERY lucky. The only thing I would do differently if I could would be not getting induced and just planning the c section from the jump.But if anyone is scared because they've only ever heard scary c section stories, I figured I'd share my very positive experience.

Hi. I’m reaching out once again a year and 1/2 after being diagnosed with CRPS from my emergency c-section. I am looking for anybody else that has been diagnosed with this. US only please as I had a person reach out that was from Canada and the healthcare isn’t the same there as it’s free for everyone. I’m looking for anybody else that lives their life in chronic pain from their c-section. Thank you everyone!!