(or if a doctor is concerned about blood loss), you may be given Pitocin, the synthetic form of oxytocin, via an IV in order to mimic that natural response.
Your body will still bleed heavily for the next few days, gradually lightening over the course of a few weeks. Thinking of it as the menstrual periods that were missed over the last nine or ten months is a helpful way to understand it. The lining of the uterus is still shedding as it used to, but this time it has had nine months to build up. Small clots are normal, and the overall flow should resemble that of a period — heavy red the first few days and getting lighter and browner as the days and weeks pass. If you begin to go back to bleeding more heavily, it is usually because you are not getting the rest you need and are being too active. One doctor explained it like this: the site where the placenta was attached needs to close up and heal. It’s like a scab, and if you are doing too much before it is completely healed, you risk opening that scab back up and bleeding again, which means you need to heal again.
Immediately after birth, you will still look about five to seven months pregnant. The after cramping that comes with the uterus getting back down to size intensifies with each baby, since the uterus has more work to do to get back to that size. In the day or two following a birth, your provider or nurse will be checking your uterus to make sure it is firm and contracting well. The checking can be very uncomfortable! However, it is important to make sure that your uterus is contracting. Within a few weeks your uterus should be back to pre-pregnancy size. A good provider will make sure that this is happening well, that bleeding is controlled, and that your body is healing properly. You will be checked a day or two after birth, possibly a week later, and then there is usually a six-week checkup to ensure that your body has done the major recovering and there are no serious issues. Within two to four days your breasts switch from producing the extremely important thick yellow colostrum for baby to filling up with normal breast milk.
By natural design, baby will usually want to nurse frequently during these first few weeks. You often can’t do much else but lie or sit and nurse the baby. The frequent nursing helps to heal your uterus and forces you to lie down and rest so your body can recover. This is the time when mothers need a good support system in place to take care of the home and other children, provide meals, and offer emotional support. This help is vital to a mother’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being. The task of growing and birthing a baby is monumental, and it would be wise for us to recognize that a mere few weeks is not enough to heal and feel back to normal. This time is a tremendous opportunity for family, friends, the Church, and neighbors to pay their respects and play a part in building a culture that honors motherhood and birth.
The Fertility Cycle Design
Another interesting part of the design of the woman’s body is that typically there is a period of natural infertility after birth (called amenorrhea). Each woman is different in how long it will last, but breastfeeding releases hormones that tell your body to suppress ovulation. It is nature’s way of spacing births so that mom and each baby get the time they need before another pregnancy. The more often you nurse and the more that baby relies on your breast, the more often those hormones are released that potentially delay the return of fertility. For some women, the return of regular cycles can take eighteen months; for some it is only a few weeks. Factors that may increase the length of this time include nursing exclusively and not supplementing with formula or food, sleeping near the baby, nursing the baby during the night, not timing feedings but feeding on the baby’s cues, and soothing the baby with the breast rather than with pacifiers or distraction. The more often your breasts are releasing milk (and prolactin and oxytocin), the more your body will know that it’s not yet time to return to normal fertility. However, each woman is different, and God’s timing may be different, too. It is definitely possible to get pregnant before the period returns if ovulation occurs before that first cycle. So, a woman who is hoping to avoid pregnancy should be observing her body and noting any signs of fertility, even if her period hasn’t returned.
Familiarity with some form of natural family planning (NFP), or at least an awareness of your body’s personal fertility cues, can be helpful to know what is going on and if fertility is returning soon. An NFP instructor, through an official method such as Billings, Creighton, Sympto-Thermal, or Marquette, can be invaluable to a woman who is experiencing confusing signs (which is normal postpartum), especially if there is a need to delay another pregnancy.
That, in a nutshell, is how the female body and birth are designed to work. It is absolutely amazing to realize that we are still learning the many interconnected ways that the systems of our body and our baby’s body interact for the great act of birth.
The design is remarkably complex and intricate, and unless there is reason to intervene, mothers and babies have the best outcomes when the natural design is respected. We know that we have an all-knowing God who has planned us from all eternity, and that he is a God who desires only our good. His design for our bodies is not haphazard. We can honor and respect that design, which functions very well, while still acknowledging that sometimes we must intervene for good reason. We can thank God and praise him for the amazing design of our bodies, and we can use our bodies to give glory back to him. Our bodies are a gift to us, beautifully and intricately designed at the service of life. We truly are wonderfully made.
It’s so strange to me now that the only thing we learned in school about our fertility was how NOT to get pregnant. I don’t necessarily think it’s the school’s job to teach that stuff, but the irony is not lost on me that we didn’t learn how the female body actually works, just how to keep it from working. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I even fully understood my cycle. Learning NFP was really empowering for me. It taught me that my body made sense! I think that helped as I prepared for birth. I still had a lot to learn, but underneath [there] was a new confidence that my body worked, and when it was time, it would know how to birth.
— Teresa A., mom to five on Earth and one in eternity
The Birth of a Father
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her.”— Ephesians 5:25
The role of the father is integral to the formation of a family. The conception of the baby within the mother’s womb is the result of the God-designed intimacy between husband and wife — the most intimate act we can engage in with another human being. The spouses’ physical act of love and self-gift results in the creation of a new, eternal, microscopic person.
The father, from the very beginning, is intrinsically involved in his child’s life. It may not be a conscious, personal relationship as of yet, but his participation is designed by God to be necessary for the child’s very existence. As the baby grows, men often find themselves becoming more and more aware of the true reality of this new son or daughter. They can develop a relationship with and a love for this baby even in utero, and the baby can learn to recognize the father’s voice. The more a mother is taken care of by the father, the more she can offer a healthy and love-filled environment for her child.
A mother experiencing high amounts of stress during pregnancy creates high cortisol levels that can potentially affect the baby. Often it is by helping his wife to get the rest, nutrition, and exercise she needs to have a healthy pregnancy and birth that a father can best love his child even before he or she is born. Giving his wife a safe environment of love and support, helping alleviate stress for her, in turn provides a safe environment of love and support for his baby.
As the pregnancy progresses, and the baby grows, the father’s relationship with his child is also designed to grow. It is entirely appropriate and beautiful then, as the role of the
