Nutrition after a cesarean section

Following a cesarean section, recovery entails more than just physical recovery. The body needs proper nutrition to rebuild its strength and vitality. After surgery, your recovery may be affected by the foods you eat, so it’s critical to choose foods that promote healing and strengthen your immune system.

After the procedure, you might experience sensitivity in your digestive system. It is imperative to commence with foods that are easily digested and progressively incorporate more nutrient-dense options. Your body will adjust and discomfort will be avoided as a result.

The secret to hastening recovery is eating a well-balanced diet high in fiber, vitamins, and protein. Water is also essential because it facilitates digestion and keeps people from becoming constipated, which can happen after surgery. After a cesarean, what you eat can have a significant impact on how you feel and heal.

Why a diet is necessary before and after surgery?

First and foremost, a proper nutritional plan is essential for the smooth progression of the surgical recovery period and the easier recovery of the female body following surgery. Anesthesia is administered to the woman before the obstetric procedure. A severe episode of vomiting right before the operation can be caused by food that the woman consumed prior to the procedure or by heavy meals that were not digested for several hours.

This is the reason it is advised that a woman avoid fatty and heavy foods the day before the procedure. The day before the procedure, doctors recommend having only light vegetable soups for lunch and a fruit (like an apple) for a horsepower. Dinner is no longer advised because the body needs time to process everything that has entered the digestive system. The laboring woman receives an enema in the morning on the day of the procedure, and her intestines are cleaned. It is advised against eating or drinking anything this morning.

In order to prevent the intestines from filling with excrement for as long as possible, a strict diet is also required for the first one to two days following surgery. The dissected and sutured uterus will be compressed by overfilled intestinal loops. Its contractile ability will consequently decline. Additionally, since straining is uncomfortable and unsettling for women, constipation during the first few postoperative days is typically a major concern.

Following surgery, the contented mother of a newborn needs to get her bowel movements back to normal before she can start eating from the communal table. A specific motor regimen is advised for this; five hours after the procedure, you can turn onto your side, and eight to ten hours later, the woman should get up and start to walk. Long periods of time spent in bed can lead to digestive issues in addition to complications from uterine involution.

After surgery, it is crucial for a woman to transition to a general diet that is high in calories. Eating a diet high enough in protein will help you heal more quickly and will also help with the process of producing breast milk.

Adequate nutrition is essential for the healing and regaining of bodily strength following a cesarean section. A well-balanced diet high in fiber, vitamins, and proteins promotes tissue healing, increases vitality, and helps avoid common post-operative digestive problems like constipation. Additionally, drinking enough water is essential to support milk production and general health, particularly for nursing mothers.

First days

For the laboring woman, the initial postoperative phase is crucial. How things progress will determine how long the rehabilitation takes. Additionally, substantial dietary restrictions need to be handled patiently and with understanding.

You cannot eat on the first day after a cesarean section. You can only drink, and even then a limited amount of liquid – no more than one and a half liters per day. It is better to drink clean water without gas with a small amount of lemon juice added. You can prepare such water in advance, the day before, and leave it in a plastic bottle, not forgetting to ask the medical staff to bring you this drink to the ward. In the evening after the surgery performed in the morning, a small amount of green apple juice is allowed. You should not go overboard with water, since after surgical childbirth, swelling of the lower extremities and internal swelling may develop.

The mother’s diet is expanded on the second postoperative day. Usually, women are experiencing noticeable hunger by this point. However, you ought never to consume everything at once. You can sip on low-fat chicken or beef broth. It is crucial that it not be focused. The "secondary broth," which is made by adding fresh water to the pan after the first, fattier broth is served, is the best thing for a mother. Spices, a lot of salt, and pepper should not be present.

A small handful of homemade white crackers, free of food additives, flavorings, and preservatives, can be added to the broth.

A woman can also begin consuming non-butter mashed potatoes on the second day. You can have diluted fruit drinks and tea that isn’t overly sweet. A woman can treat herself to a tiny jar of pureed meat in the evening.

You can introduce water-based porridge into the diet on the third day. Porridge made of rice and semolina is an exception, as it can lead to intestinal fermentation and constipation. The porridge does not require the addition of butter or sugar. You can have steamed chicken cutlets, boiled and steamed veggies, kefir, and sweet tea during the second part of the third day.

The laboring woman is moved to the general table on the fourth day, where she is allowed to eat anything that is served to nursing mothers in the maternity hospital. She can receive any type of food from home as long as it is steamed or boiled; fatty, fried, smoked, semi-finished goods, and confections are strictly prohibited. For most women, the first signs of breast milk usually appear three or four days following a cesarean section. As a result, the mother’s daily fluid intake should be capped at 800 ml to prevent the mammary glands from enlarging excessively.

Plenty of fruits and vegetables, along with porridge and puree, will help the woman "start" her intestines’ work quickly and gently, preventing constipation. If avoiding them was not an option, you will need to perform an enema on the fourth day. The procedure will take place in the maternity ward, or they will advise you on the mild laxatives that can be taken to ease a sensitive and uncomfortable situation.

General rules for organizing a diet

Whether the mother will breastfeed the child or whether artificial feeding is the only option is a major factor in nutrition matters. The situation might be different. We will outline the general guidelines that a post-operative mother should follow, whether or not she chooses to breastfeed her child.

• Meals should be five or six times a day. If a woman is breastfeeding, that is, she herself should approximately half an hour before feeding the child. If not feeding, then at intervals of 2.5-3.5 hours in order to get back into shape faster.
• Fatty, fried, grilled and other tasty and beautiful foods should not be eaten. The main methods of cooking food are boiling, baking in the oven, stewing, steaming.
• Canned foods and semi-finished products are canceled until the end of breastfeeding and until the woman has fully returned to her usual weight after childbirth. A woman should eat only freshly prepared food.
• Carefully monitor the amount of liquid you drink. After lactation is established (approximately a week after surgery), the amount of liquid after a slight forced decrease to 800 ml per day, begins to increase to one and a half liters per day. You should not drink more to avoid lactostasis.

One and a half liters of liquid per day is not the limit for women who are not nursing; in fact, drinking two will speed up weight loss.

• All treats introduced for the first time, which the new mother will gradually add to her diet, should be introduced only when the baby is four weeks old. In the first month after a cesarean section, it is better to adhere to stricter rules, eating baked or boiled vegetables and fruits, boiled or steamed meat, and dairy products in moderate quantities. From the beginning of the second month, you can add one new product from the list of permitted ones to the menu every 3 days. If an allergic reaction does not occur in a child who is breastfeeding, you can add the next product, but not earlier than after 3-4 days.
• The restrictions provided for in the list of prohibited products should be in effect for at least six months if the woman is not breastfeeding, and until the end of breastfeeding, if it takes place. Such products include alcohol, chocolate, citrus fruits, mayonnaise, seafood and legumes.

Diet of a nursing mother

Everything a child needs for healthy growth and development should be present in breast milk. Eventually, breast milk will be its only source of nutrition, and the vitamins and minerals it contains should be more than sufficient for the small organism. For this reason, it is not advised for women to follow stringent mono-diets that require severe restriction and fasting.

By including foods that you can eat in your diet while also considering their calorie content and your own physical activity, you can "kill two birds with one stone": breastfeed your child and shed any excess weight you may have gained during your pregnancy. The foods that should form the foundation of your diet and those you should stay away from while nursing are listed below.

Allowed

In most maternity hospitals, a woman who has had a cesarean section is not informed about what she can eat after the early postoperative period ends. If they do offer advice, it’s usually very imprecise. It will therefore not be unnecessary to provide a detailed list of goods and foods that are permitted to be consumed while nursing following surgery.

• Butter. Butter should be limited to 25 grams per day. Vegetable oil can also be added to food, however, avoid heating and boiling it. The total permissible daily amount of vegetable oil is 10 grams.
• Bread, crackers, cookies. It is better to buy wheat bread no higher than the second grade, it is permissible to make crackers from gray bread, dry cookies are allowed.
• Cereals, porridge from them. First on water, then dairy ones, the proportion of milk in the preparation of which does not exceed one third of the total liquid. The exception is semolina, with caution and in small quantities it is allowed to eat pearl barley, rice porridge, corn grits. You can add a little butter to the porridge.

• Meat, poultry, fish. Meat and fish can be eaten 2-3 times a week. The rest of the time, it is better to choose white chicken meat. In general, you should choose only lean varieties. If fish, then hake, pike perch, pollock, cod. If meat, then beef, veal, rabbit.
• Soups. When cooking first courses, it is important to exclude an abundance of spices, tomato paste. You need to temporarily limit your potato consumption, you need to put less of it in the soup. It is allowed to cook soups with meatballs, pieces of lean meat, cauliflower, carrots, zucchini.
• Vegetables. They should make up a decent share of the diet. It is recommended to eat at least 400 grams of vegetables per day. Squash, zucchini, pumpkin, beets are allowed. In the first couple of months, it is better to eat vegetables boiled, baked, stewed.

Following that, you can consume raw green vegetables as well as red, orange, and other colorful vegetables cooked into stews, homemade vegetable caviar, vegetable cutlets, etc. d., or after they have been heated.

• Fruits. The first permitted ones are apples. Other fruits can gradually be introduced after them, but not those that are saturated with fruit acids. For a balanced diet during breastfeeding and recovery, the woman herself needs to eat about 300 grams of fruits and berries and drink about 200 ml of juice with pulp (not store-bought)! . Dried fruits will be an excellent source of vitamins and prevent constipation.
• Dairy products. First, as already mentioned, kefir is introduced, then low-fat yogurts are allowed, preferably natural ones, cottage cheese. Sour cream is used as an additive to first and second courses. Nursing mothers should not consume low-fat dairy products. Optimal fat content is 2.5%. The total volume of fermented milk dishes per day should be close to 700 ml.

A woman may combine any dishes from the approved products up to six meals weighing 400–450 grams each.

Prohibited

The subsequent products may be deemed inappropriate for mothers:

• anything that contains dyes and flavors, all fast food;
• products that cause increased gas formation (white cabbage, legumes, rye bread, kvass, whole milk and yeast dough, as well as dishes using such products, including cabbage soup, borscht, pies);
• seafood (crabs, shrimp, oysters, octopus, fish is allowed if it is not fatty);
• nuts, mushrooms, chocolate and coffee as highly allergenic products;
• products that can change the taste of breast milk (garlic, radish, celery);
• sauces;
• sausages and hot dogs;
• fermented and refractory cheeses;
• carbonated drinks;
• cakes, pastries.

It should be mentioned that the list of items that are forbidden might grow in light of the child’s unique intolerance to some of the approved products.

After a cesarean section, eating well is essential to a quick recovery and feeling your best as a new mother. Consuming well-balanced meals high in protein, vitamins, and minerals can hasten healing and increase vitality.

It’s equally crucial to stay hydrated, so make sure you sip lots of water all day long. Steer clear of processed and heavy foods as they may impede digestion; instead, opt for nourishing, gentle options that aid in your body’s healing.

Always pay attention to your body’s signals and adjust gradually as necessary. Since each woman heals differently, give your health top priority, take your time, and get enough rest.

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NUTRITION AFTER CESAREAN SECTION | What can you eat after a cesarean section