Whether you’re preparing for birth or in the thick of postpartum recovery, this episode is packed with real talk and practical advice. We’re joined by Liesel from Mommy Labor Nurse (@mommy.labornurse) to answer some of the most common questions about labor, C-sections, vaginal delivery, and what actually happens after the baby is born.

We cover:

• How to advocate for yourself during labor (without conflict)
• Must-have items for C-section and vaginal birth recovery
• How to care for stitches and prevent infection
• What no one tells you about postpartum bleeding
• Pain management tips and why you shouldn’t try to be a hero
• Why stool softeners are your best friend (seriously)

From grabber tools to emotional resilience, this is the kind of candid postpartum prep we all deserve.

 

00:00 – Welcome & Episode Preview

00:46 – Advocating for Yourself During Labor

03:04 – C-Section Recovery Must-Haves

05:28 – Postpartum Tips for Vaginal Deliveries

07:12 – How to Care for Stitches (C-Section & Vaginal)

10:28 – One Thing I Wish I Knew Postpartum

13:47 – Why the First 24 Hours Postpartum Are Wild

14:22 – Surprised by Postpartum Bleeding? You’re Not Alone

15:16 – Wrap Up & Takeaways

 

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on the PedsDocTalk Podcast Sponsorships page of the website.

00;00;00;05 – 00;00;24;28

Dr. Mona

Welcome to the follow up. I’m Doctor Mona, your pediatrician and mom friend. This is your Monday. Pick me up a little wisdom from a past episode to carry you through whatever today may bring, whether that’s a toddler tantrum, cluster feeding, or the great mystery of where all your matching baby socks went. Today we’re revisiting a chat with Liesel Teen, a labor and delivery nurse and founder of Mommy Labor Nurse.

 

00;00;25;06 – 00;00;46;03

Dr. Mona

Liesel is the friend you wish you had in the delivery room with you. Calm, funny, and full of practical advice. Plus, she knows her way around a Perry bottle like a pro. In this episode, we talk about how to actually advocate for yourself during labor without feeling like a difficult patient. Plus, must know recovery tips after both vaginal and C-section deliveries.

 

00;00;46;04 – 00;00;59;10

Dr. Mona

Trust me, this is a must listen. Spoiler alert. Make sure you grab those grabbers and stool softeners because those make the list. Let’s get into it.

 

00;00;59;12 – 00;01;05;07

Dr. Mona

How best can I of pregnant woman advocate for myself during labor?

 

00;01;05;10 – 00;01;33;06

Liesel Teen

I basically start off when we start talking about advocacy is I start talking to people on how to actually advocate for yourself, because a lot of people just don’t really understand what that means. And a lot of people kind of like have a negative connotation to advocacy. And it’s really not about being negative. It’s just about, I mean, I really just kind of teach it as like, okay, you know, you want to talk to your care provider in a respectful way.

 

00;01;33;06 – 00;01;55;28

Liesel Teen

First of all, right. You don’t want to, like, curse at them or rub them, you know, completely the wrong way. But you want to be clear and concise and firm and say, hey, like, this is how I feel. Let’s do an example of, I don’t know, let’s say I want to stand up during labor or something, or I want to move around more during labor.

 

00;01;56;00 – 00;02;18;07

Liesel Teen

So if your providers coming in and saying, you know, we have to put you on the monitor, you have to be on bedrest, you know, your whole labor. I would probably advocate for myself and say, okay, first of all, can you can you kind of tell me exactly why that’s needed? I would, you know, I it seems like I’m really low risk.

 

00;02;18;10 – 00;02;40;01

Liesel Teen

I’m like, you know, my baby’s not had had any heart rate decelerations. I’ve done this research on how, you know, how moving around can be really beneficial, especially if I’m super low risk. Is there a specific reason? Maybe there is. And then they bring up that reason. You say, oh, okay, that makes sense. Like this is why now.

 

00;02;40;04 – 00;03;02;17

Liesel Teen

But that’s not you know, you’re just asking questions. Advocacy is really about stating what you want to state and asking questions and getting to the end point of, okay, this sounds great. We agree. Or okay, you know what? Let me think about it some more and we can reassess in 15 minutes, or we can reassess in 30 minutes.

 

00;03;02;17 – 00;03;04;21

Liesel Teen

That’s that’s advocacy in a nutshell.

 

00;03;04;26 – 00;03;10;01

Dr. Mona

Now my next one was what would be your advice postpartum for C-section moms?

 

00;03;10;03 – 00;03;31;16

Liesel Teen

Okay. If you’ve had a C-section like I’ve never had a C-section. So I want to know specifically from you, what are some things that you think like, you know, are really needed postpartum wise? And really the main things were high waisted stuff like like high waisted pants, high waisted panties. They have those like I think they’re by up spring.

 

00;03;31;19 – 00;03;53;15

Liesel Teen

There’s a few different brands but like really super high waisted nice and nice underwear and what are they called. The abdominal binders are really, really nice for C-section moms. They love those. And then honestly, one of the funniest things that somebody said to me, one of the items was like, have you ever seen those?

 

00;03;53;22 – 00;03;56;27

Liesel Teen

Have you ever seen those little grabbers? Like, they’re like, oh yeah, ten.

 

00;03;56;27 – 00;03;57;29

Dr. Mona

Glittery.

 

00;03;58;02 – 00;04;16;20

Liesel Teen

Grabbers, right? See, like she was like, I brought one of those grabber things so I could just, like, grab things at the end of my bed and, like, grab things over so I didn’t have to get up because that’s, C-section moms different from a vaginal delivery. It’s a lot harder to just, like, get out of bed.

 

00;04;16;22 – 00;04;42;11

Liesel Teen

Another mom said, she had, like, a really high bed at home. So like a little staircase, like keeping a little staircase right next to your bed. So it’s like, not that dramatic drop. One more thing was, ice packs that are, like, shaped like, like, right. Like that you can keep on your incision not so long that it gets really moist because you want to keep the incision dry.

 

00;04;42;13 – 00;04;47;26

Liesel Teen

But ice is really, really good down there because it feels so nice.

 

00;04;47;26 – 00;05;06;10

Dr. Mona

Yeah, absolutely. I was I had a C-section. So you had vaginal delivery for your first. Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I was, I was hoping for the vaginal. I thought it would be fine. And man, you’re right that it is. It is intense. The C-section recovery. You’re you forget how much you need your abs to do. So much walking.

 

00;05;06;11 – 00;05;27;25

Dr. Mona

Yes. Like laughing and and coughing like I. So, yeah, I mean, I will say it gets better, obviously. And for anyone who’s like, you know, doesn’t C-section, I don’t want you to live in fear of it. It does get better. You’ll get back to your baseline activity. But yeah, the first six weeks to eight weeks, it could happen like that where you’re feeling like, wow, I feel like someone punched me in my stomach and oh, all.

 

00;05;27;25 – 00;05;28;11

Liesel Teen

The time.

 

00;05;28;15 – 00;05;34;10

Dr. Mona

What about for what about for, vaginal deliveries. Having gone through it yourself, what are some must have postpartum.

 

00;05;34;12 – 00;06;13;01

Liesel Teen

Yeah. So vaginal delivery, you know, you don’t need quite some of the things that I talked about, but I definitely always recommend for moms, even with, you know, C-section moms, because you’re going to be bleeding as well, is to have a little basket kind of in your bathroom and your, you know, the bathroom that you typically use, and having like hemorrhoid tucks pads in there because you probably, you know, most people at least maybe not have hemorrhoids that come out, but they, but they need tucks pads just down there because they’ve been pushing, so tax pads and extra pads in there, extra underwear because it’s, you know, it gets messy.

 

00;06;13;04 – 00;06;32;27

Liesel Teen

And I really like that derma plus spray if you’re familiar with that. They get that out at most hospitals, but not all. So sometimes you have to order ordered on Amazon. It’s just like a numbing spray. So I kept tucks pads, regular pads, extra underwear, and the derma spray, just like in a little basket on the top of my toilet.

 

00;06;32;27 – 00;06;59;03

Liesel Teen

And that was my little postpartum, you know, room. And then the other thing that I like to tell moms, and this is if you’ve had a at home delivery or a C-section is make sure you’re taken since store softeners because that is not fun. And it’s a reality if, you know, after you have after you have a baby, you know, your body goes through a very stressful, significant event.

 

00;06;59;06 – 00;07;12;29

Dr. Mona

So now I want to go through just a few more questions about that. I got from the question box, how you briefly mentioned this, but how to care for stitches and postpartum, whether it’s, you know, from vaginal, if they ended up needing like an a PCR to me, which is where they have to repair or a C-section.

 

00;07;13;01 – 00;07;40;29

Liesel Teen

Yeah. So C-section, the main things that we want to think about is keeping the area dry and clean. So this is unless, you know, it might depend on kind of what your, what your OB, you know, what the surgeon did. Because some surgeons that use staples, some surgeons do surgery strips, some surgeons, you know, do almost like it’s almost it’s sutures, but it’s almost like a, thread, a needle, you know, kind of closure.

 

00;07;41;02 – 00;08;08;08

Liesel Teen

And they, you know, it’s all different kind of dressings. But once that dressing comes off, obviously take, you know, their advice. So they’re going to give you a lot of instructions and say, hey, this is how you care for your incision. So look at all of that stuff and, you know, follow their advice obviously first. But yeah, really the main things are like keep the area nice, nice and dry and clean, use, you know, soapy water every day to, to clean the incision.

 

00;08;08;10 – 00;08;26;22

Liesel Teen

I know some people like to kind of peek at their sterile strips and kind of peel them off, but just to kind of just let them, let them kind of fall off on their own. So that’s really a C-section. And going back to like the ice pack thing, it’s okay to keep, you know, ice on the area, especially if it feels good.

 

00;08;26;29 – 00;08;59;00

Liesel Teen

But we want to be mindful of moisture. So especially if you, you know, are have like, you know, you’re on the heavier side and you’re keeping an ice pack there. You just want to be mindful of, like making sure to pat dry after the ice pack is there. Or even if you don’t have an ice pack, maybe just got out of the shower making sure you’re kind of patting dry and making sure that area is really dry because it if you’re if you have like folds down there where it, you know, there’s moisture buildup.

 

00;08;59;00 – 00;09;26;17

Liesel Teen

That’s when we talk about infection. We don’t want to have any surgical site infections because that’s not fun. Nobody wants that for vaginal deliveries. So most, most, if not all stitches dissolve on their own. And it usually takes usually takes a couple weeks for them to dissolve. But not usually. It’s it can last for you can kind of still have those stitches dissolve at, you know, 5 or 6 weeks postpartum.

 

00;09;26;20 – 00;09;47;10

Liesel Teen

And I like to tell people to you, don’t be surprised if it’s a little bit kind of itchy and irritated down there as they’re dissolving. And as that like stitches kind of just like, right when it goes away. Like I remember that feeling and thinking like, oh, do I have a yeast infection? And I’m like, no, I don’t have any discharge or anything, but it almost like it’s an itchy kind of feeling.

 

00;09;47;10 – 00;10;03;29

Liesel Teen

So just watch out for that again. You know, you can’t keep your vagina super dry, right? But you know, you want to be clean, lay down there and do lots of, you know, with the squirt bottle, making sure you’re just keeping keeping cleaned out. There is the main thing.

 

00;10;04;02 – 00;10;28;27

Dr. Mona

Oh, yeah. And I think, you know, signs of infection, especially sections, redness. Now odor, foul odor. Like possibly excessive bleeding from obviously the vaginal area or obviously your C-section site. But yeah, absolutely. Those are absolutely amazing tips. What would be one postpartum tip that maybe you didn’t know before, right. Like that. Maybe from the past pregnancy that you’re like, wow, I wish someone would have told me this postpartum.

 

00;10;28;29 – 00;10;32;13

Dr. Mona

But now you want to impart on on moms to be here.

 

00;10;32;15 – 00;11;06;16

Liesel Teen

So we already talked about pooping. So that’s like my one that when somebody asked me this question that I usually say expect that or just anticipate that. And here’s interventions that you can do to avoid, you know, severe or severe constipation. And then I guess I would also say one thing that I’m going to try and not do, especially with this pregnancy in this postpartum experience, is minimize my pain like I did the first time because like, I was just talking to my care provider about this the other day and how I’m going to try and like, do things differently.

 

00;11;06;18 – 00;11;43;19

Liesel Teen

So with Walter, you know, I didn’t like, have an epidural with him. Super like crazy intense. You know, pain like painful labor experience. Of course. Even if I had had an epidural, I’m sure, you know, it still would have been painful. Like, it’s still it or had a C-section. Like, it’s just painful to have a baby. But I remember thinking so many times and having pain, whether it was the constant, the issues with the constipation or whether it was vaginal pain or whether it was like a lot of cramping or whether it was pain, you know, initially when he lost or just like pain in general and minimizing it to the point of

 

00;11;43;22 – 00;12;08;25

Liesel Teen

of saying in my head, I just went through a really crazy, crazy, painful experience, like, what am I complaining about? You know? And I remember thinking that in my head and minimizing it and then, you know, eventually, like, okay, I would take Motrin. I would feel better, you know, heal it. Healing happens and you heal. But I just I remember thinking about that months later and being like, I feel like that wasn’t right.

 

00;12;08;25 – 00;12;23;04

Liesel Teen

Like I feel like I probably should have spoken up about this or taken my place more regularly, or just like, done more interventions and not minimized my pain. So that’s something I also like to tell people don’t minimize your pain. If you hurt, you hurt.

 

00;12;23;07 – 00;12;40;08

Dr. Mona

Oh yeah, I mean, I and I normally am not. I normally don’t have pain meaning I have a pain a high pain threshold. So I, I did minimize my and I completely agree with you. And, and that actually led me to have more complications because I was like, oh, is this normal? And because you don’t know what’s normal and no one else can be inside your body.

 

00;12;40;08 – 00;13;01;14

Dr. Mona

So I kept saying, I’m like, something doesn’t feel right. I don’t know, like, is it normal not to do this? Is it normal to have this pain? And if you’re feeling it, it’s probably not normal. Like, meaning there’s something there. And I. One thing besides the colleagues. I agree with you completely that do not skip out on your pooping meds because it’s when you can’t poop, it’s going to hurt a lot more.

 

00;13;01;14 – 00;13;18;12

Dr. Mona

So, Sam, stay ahead of the game. On your pooping meds for sure. And then the other thing is, if you did have a C-section, especially the amount of pain that can happen postpartum, like stay on top of those pain meds. Also, like, don’t feel like you’re trying to be a hero and say, okay, well, I don’t need to take it because it can hit you much later.

 

00;13;18;12 – 00;13;33;02

Dr. Mona

And I learned that the hard way. I thought I didn’t need it. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks and I was like, oh my gosh, especially funny, I didn’t know this. 24. So the first 24 hours, if you get an epidural, so if you get an epidural the first 24 hours postpartum, you’re going to feel like a million bucks.

 

00;13;33;07 – 00;13;47;00

Dr. Mona

It’s going to be like it takes a while to wear off point. I didn’t realize that it was going to take so long. And then after 24 hours, I was like, oh, oh, this, this hurts because that epidural can actually stick around for a little bit if you choose to get one. Yeah. But no, I agree. And guess what else?

 

00;13;47;01 – 00;13;47;11

Dr. Mona

Yeah.

 

00;13;47;11 – 00;13;57;06

Liesel Teen

And guess what else happens at 24 hours? Usually babies wake up more at 24 hours of life. So your baby. So you’re hurting more and your baby’s screaming a little bit more.

 

00;13;57;08 – 00;14;22;11

Dr. Mona

Oh yeah. So it’s the hardest thing. Just a cruel joke. Almost like you go through this major experience and then you have to take care of another human being when you’re in pain. Obviously there’s, you know, even with not just C-section but vaginal deliveries, the amount of bleeding that can happen is, you know, it’s actually I didn’t that was one thing I didn’t know is that I didn’t realize that the amount of bleeding that comes postpartum, when you’re basically having the uterus is starting to shrink down.

 

00;14;22;17 – 00;14;34;01

Dr. Mona

The amount of bleeding that happens, it’s like, I didn’t I didn’t know that. I actually didn’t know that you bleed that much. And it’s not it’s like, imagine not having your period for nine months. Like makes up for it. It’s like.

 

00;14;34;01 – 00;14;38;06

Liesel Teen

Builds up. Yeah. It’s like a nine month like long period. Yeah.

 

00;14;38;06 – 00;14;55;12

Dr. Mona

Yeah. For weeks. And I, you know, and it sometimes comes out clotted. And I kept asking them like is this normal. Like why is my like why am I bleeding. And it is obviously if you’re feeling I’m sure you you talked to the postpartum team. But these are great tips. Liesl.

 

00;14;55;15 – 00;15;16;26

Dr. Mona

And that’s your follow up. Just a small dose of the real relatable and eye opening conversations we love to have here. If you smiled, nodded, or had an moment, go ahead and download, follow and share this episode with a friend. Let’s grow this village together for more everyday parenting wins and real talk. Hang out with us on Instagram at the PedsDocTalk podcast.

 

00;15;17;03 – 00;15;32;15

Dr. Mona

Want more? Dive into the full episode and more at PedsDocTalk.com. Because parenting is better with support. And remember, consistency is key. Humor is medicine and follow ups are everything. I’m Doctor Mona. See you next time for your next dose.