A planned caesarean section requires careful preparation. One of the points that is highly recommended to observe is the purchase of compression stockings. This item is on the list of items required for hospitalization, but the need for such underwear is not explained, and therefore it can be quite difficult for a woman to understand why it is necessary to purchase medical stockings, how to choose them and how to use them later. In this article we will try to answer these questions as fully as possible.
About medical linen
Compression medical underwear is called for a reason, for the sake of a nice word. Compression is compression. Accordingly, hospital linen provides this very compression exactly where it is needed. Stockings with compression action are recommended for people with circulatory problems, for those who spend a lot of time on their feet due to their duty, are under stress.
For pregnant women and women in labor, such stockings are needed to reduce the load on the legs during gestation, and also to prevent disruption of the vascular function during childbirth, when a woman experiences severe stress.
How linen works is fairly easy to understand. We have all worn tight knee-highs or tights at least once, and therefore the sensations are quite familiar. With pressure from the outside on the legs, the lumen of the veins becomes smaller, the blood begins to circulate faster. The pressure at the ankles is always stronger than at the thigh, so the blood flow is distributed in such a way that more blood gets to the heart than to the lower extremities, the pressure rises, and the likelihood of a dangerous blood clot in the veins of the legs decreases.
During pregnancy, such underwear helps a woman not to experience big problems with the feeling of "heavy legs", is the prevention of varicose veins. During childbirth, they carefully preserve the integrity of the vascular network in the overload mode.
Purpose for COP
Women may wonder why such underwear is needed during a delivery operation, because the woman in labor will definitely not have to grieve - the child will be removed from the incisions in the uterus and abdomen without effort on the part of the mother. Indeed, a cesarean section is an abdominal operation. And this fact is decisive.
With the penetration of doctors into the abdominal cavity of a woman in labor, the load on all vessels increases tens of times, which ultimately may well provoke the formation of blood clots. Blood clots can embark on a fascinating but short journey through the bloodstream, which will most likely lead to a dangerous complication - thromboembolism, in which the lumen of a blood vessel is blocked by one of the "traveling" blood clots. Some forms of thromboembolism are deadly.
Anesthesia also increases the likelihood of such an unsightly scenario. The drugs that are used for it negatively affect the vascular tone, as a result of this effect, the vessels can be damaged. When restoring their integrity, the stage of thrombus formation will, alas, be inevitable.
The best prevention is the distribution of pressure in the vessels so that the likelihood of injury is minimal. This is what hospital stockings can achieve.
Some obstetric institutions practice bandaging the legs with elastic medical bandages. This is a cheaper way to achieve results, but even an experienced physician when bandaging can be mistaken with the degree of compression, the pressure of the bandages on the vessels. In addition, the bandage can be untied and unwound at the most inopportune moment. In this regard, stockings are much more comfortable, reliable and simpler.
Today, the Ministry of Health recommends taking them for a planned operation to all women in labor, but especially persistently to those who have direct indications for wearing such underwear:
- swelling of the legs;
- gestosis;
- the presence of a manifested vascular network ("stars", "cobwebs") on the legs;
- pathological weight gain;
- convulsive syndrome (legs cramp);
- blood clotting disorders according to test data, a tendency to thrombosis.
After surgery, a woman usually spends about 10-12 hours in a horizontal position, which in itself disrupts blood circulation and becomes a risk factor. After the operation, for several days, the drugs used for anesthesia and their metabolites continue to be removed from the body of the postpartum woman, and therefore the risk of vascular disorders remains. Stockings worn before the operation will help to avoid negative consequences in the postpartum period.
Selection rules
When choosing stockings for surgery, do not pay special attention to the aesthetic appearance of products, design and decorations. You choose not stockings for a party, but lingerie to preserve your own health. Therefore, you need to focus on the following points.
Compression ratio
There are four degrees. As the number of compression increases, the pressure on the vessels will be stronger. If a woman does not have serious vascular diseases, then first or second degree compression stockings are quite suitable for a cesarean section.
The third and fourth are designed to treat serious vascular diseases. If in doubt, it is best to consult a specialist. Phlebologists - doctors who specialize in diseases of the blood vessels - are the best experts in compression of hospital linen.
Manufacturer
When choosing products, counterfeits and counterfeits are unacceptable. They may not provide not only the proper compression ratio, but they may not show such an effect at all. It is best to buy medical stockings that are produced by factories that have cooperated with health care institutions for many years.
Here are several names of time-tested stockings - Relaxsan, Mediven medi, Ergoforma, Sigvaris, Venoteks.
Material
Since you can wear stockings during pregnancy, and you will also have to for some time after the operation, you should make sure that the materials are natural, wear-resistant, so that the legs "breathe" in them. The above manufacturers specialize in products made from just such materials.
The size
Even if all the conditions for the correct choice are met, and a bobble has come out with the size, there will be no benefit from the products. Therefore, it is important to correctly calculate your own size. On the packaging of medical medical underwear, manufacturers usually indicate tables of sizes corresponding to a particular size of underwear of a particular brand. To find your own, you need to make simple measurements with a measuring tape: measure the volume of the lower leg at the ankle, take a measurement from the lower leg at its widest point, fix the circumference of the thigh 25 centimeters above the kneecap, and also find out the length of the legs from the foot to the groin.
These four parameters will help you find your size in the size table and make the right choice.
How to use before and after surgery?
It is best to choose and buy two pairs of medical stockings. While one is being worn, the other can be washed and dried. If such underwear was worn during pregnancy to support the legs and blood vessels, then it is better to take a new set of stockings with you before the operation - the conditions of stay in the operating room require a certain degree of sterility and cleanliness. If there is no second pair, you need to wash and thoroughly dry the existing stockings.
Putting on hospital underwear is quite simple - the foot is inserted with the toe forward into the hole at the bottom (usually stockings do not have socks). To make it easier for the leg to slip inside, you can put on a sock and then take it off. The stockings are evenly distributed over the entire leg area, avoiding folds and gathers.
It is important to know that it is best to wear medical jersey in the morning without getting out of bed. If possible, it is better to do just that. But in practice, in maternity hospitals, preparation for the operation usually involves a complex of morning procedures, before which it is better not to wear stockings because of the risk of getting them dirty. This complex includes a cleansing enema, pubic shaving and showering. Only after that, the stockings are put on in a prone position and sent to the operating room.
After the operation, wearing hospital clothes should be continued. How long does it take to take off your stockings is an individual question.
If the woman's blood vessels before the cesarean section were healthy and did not cause problems, many extra pounds were not gained, then the stockings can be removed earlier. Women with substantial weight gain, problem veins in their legs, should not rush.
Medical jersey in the first days after surgical delivery should be worn constantly, without removing. You can sleep in stockings. Only after a week is it recommended to start wearing medical underwear only in the daytime, taking it off before bedtime.
Doctors believe that in the absence of blood and vascular diseases, it will be enough for a woman to wear stockings for two weeks after an operative delivery. During this time, the painkillers will be completely removed, the blood lost during the operation will be replenished.
Women who need stockings for a longer time due to the presence of diseases, a tendency to thrombosis, will receive individual recommendations when discharged from the hospital home.
Another good piece of advice that doctors in a hurry can forget about when they are discharged: do not abruptly refuse to wear medical medical underwear. It is best to gradually reduce the time you wear the stockings by 2-3 hours a day. Then the failure will be smoother for the body.
You can learn about the intricacies of choosing medical underwear from the following video.
