Usually, after a cesarean section, a woman is recommended careful contraception for two years. Doctors do not recommend getting pregnant earlier, and they have good reasons for this. But life can be unpredictable, and sometimes a woman becomes pregnant much earlier and is determined to keep the child. In this article, we will tell you what features a pregnancy can have that occurs a year after the operation, what you need to prepare for and whether it is possible to give birth naturally.
Why are there restrictions?
When a young happy mother is discharged from the hospital with her baby, her doctor warns that after a cesarean section, it is not recommended to become pregnant, or to have abortions or other operations in the uterine cavity for two years. But few doctors find the time and desire to tell the puerpera about the reasons for this prohibition in general, and this is very important not only for planning a subsequent pregnancy, but also for understanding its features, if it comes earlier.
An internal scar on the uterus is formed in stages and a variety of circumstances can affect this process. The adhesion of the wound edges begins already in the first hours after the operation, after a day, complete adhesion occurs. The process of formation of new cells of uterine tissue - myocytes begins. If there are enough of them, the scar will be elastic and rich. If connective rough tissue predominates, the scar will be considered problematic. An internal wound on the uterus heals a couple of months after surgical delivery, and full recovery occurs only by the end of the two-year period.
The very restoration of all the resources of the female body after the operation takes much longer than physiological childbirth, and the nature of the subsequent gestation depends on the state of health of the woman as a whole.
Hence the conclusion that The "interesting position" that came 12 months after the first COP or so is a very risky business, after all, the formation of an elastic and strong scar on the uterus has not yet been completed. In a state of pregnancy, the reproductive organ will again begin to increase in size, expand, the uterine tissue will stretch, and a thin and fragile scar may not withstand and disperse even before the baby is born, which threatens with massive bleeding, and often the death of the mother and fetus.
In addition, a scar on the uterus also creates additional threats: an incorrect location of the placenta is often formed, but if it grows into the area of the scar, then the ingrowth is usually total and the uterus has to be removed together with the baby during a cesarean section. A woman cannot have more children.
The scar has a bad effect on the placental blood flow, the threat of miscarriage, intrauterine growth retardation, various malformations of the baby's organs and systems, the birth of a small baby is not excluded.
If a woman becomes pregnant
If pregnancy occurred earlier than two years after the first operation, this does not always indicate the woman's irresponsibility or medical illiteracy. It happens that the means of contraception fail, and you can't get away from this.
What to do is up to the woman herself to decide. First you need to visit a doctor at the antenatal clinic. In 99% of cases, the doctor will begin to dissuade the patient from maintaining such a hasty pregnancy and will give a lot of arguments in favor of abortion. In this situation, no one is an advisor either - only the woman herself and her relatives can make a certain decision. If it is accepted in favor of maintaining pregnancy, you should prepare for the fact that a red triangle will immediately appear on the exchange card, meaning that the woman belongs to high-risk pregnant women.
This suggests that examinations, tests and ultrasound will have to be done more often, visit a doctor and, perhaps, stay in the hospital with the slightest threat of miscarriage or a change in the blood formula will also have to be more often. Such pregnancy will receive increased attention from specialists.
Pregnancy management
To begin with, the doctor will need to make sure that the fetus is not fixed in the scar zone, since this is an unambiguous indication for a medical abortion. For this, the pregnant woman will be sent for an ultrasound scan. The ultrasound diagnostics doctor will measure the thickness of the inner seam, determine whether the scar is homogeneous and give his preliminary conclusion on its viability.
If the scar is inconsistent, then again an abortion will be offered.
A woman has the right to refuse, especially since today there are many doctors and clinics that specialize in the management of pregnancy with a thin and heterogeneous scar.
The changing thickness of the scar will be monitored several times during pregnancy. Despite the fact that ultrasound specialists consider the data obtained in the first trimester to be more informative, the thickness of the scar is examined especially carefully in the third - about a month before the birth of the baby, the woman will be measured every 10 days.
If a new pregnancy has become a reality a year after the caesarean section, there is no point in talking about the possibility of physiological childbirth. Failure to comply with the two-year period is a clear contraindication to physiological childbirth, even if the scar, according to ultrasound estimates, is quite good. It has little elasticity and can break during contractions. But there are separate private clinics that accept such childbirth on a paid basis at their own peril and risk.
A second cesarean section is prescribed for up to 39 weeks, usually it is tried to be performed at 37-38 weeksto exclude the slightest possibility of the onset of independent battles. It is possible that a woman will have to spend the last weeks of pregnancy not at home, but in a hospital, where she will be monitored around the clock.
The most dangerous third or fourth pregnancy that occurs after a one-year break since the second or third cesarean section. Each time, doctors excise the existing scar and make a new joint, respectively, with each pregnancy, the scar on the uterus becomes thinner and thinner. But even such children are carried and given birth thanks to modern medicine.
Reviews
A woman who becomes pregnant a year after the first caesarean section will initially be confused and scared. But absolutely only until she finds on the Web numerous reviews about pregnancy and childbirth of the same as she, conceived a second baby earlier than required in terms of time. And most of the reviews are full of optimism and are an example of successfully overcoming all fears and problems.
Indeed, a complication in the form of a ruptured uterus is not as common as doctors say in antenatal clinics, when they do not want to take responsibility for a high-risk pregnant woman.
But there is another reason for the abundance of positive reviews - it is always more pleasant to share your experience when everything ended well than to talk about the tragic consequences and your own self-confidence.
Be that as it may, any decision you make is only yours. A competent doctor, compliance with all his recommendations in the process of bearing crumbs will minimize the risks of unwanted dangerous consequences.
For a scar on the uterus after a cesarean section during a subsequent pregnancy, see the following video.
