Despite being the unsung heroes that they truly are, many c-section mums tend to feel like failures, and this is because women who have a surgical birth are more likely to experience feelings of loss, grief, personal failure and lower self-esteem.
This perception that c-section mums have of themselves is very far from the truth, because while women who have given birth by vaginal delivery deal with postpartum challenges, c-section mums have to simultaneously juggle both postpartum challenges with post-surgery challenges, as well as looking after new baby with very limited mobility because of their painful c-section wounds borne from the major surgery that they have undergone.
The period after giving birth is a somewhat testing time for all new mums regardless of whether they gave birth by vaginal delivery or c-section because it involves looking after the baby 24 hours 7 - It leaves new mums with very little time to take care of themselves.
The fact that c-section mums carry a slightly heavier burden means that they have absolutely no time to give their wounds the attention it needs to heal faster, as a result this usually leads to the wound complications that cause infection.
The overall majority of c-section mums we spoke with expressed how they barely had time to air their wounds, and explained that the only time that their wounds were exposed to air were while they were undressed and ready to get into the shower.
This lack of self-responsiveness very easily weighs c-section mums down and leads to postnatal depression - because they know that they need to treat their wounds by allowing air to get to it, but there is absolutely no time to do it.
Women who have had to suddenly undergo emergency c-section, after many hours of pushing in labour, only to find out that something has suddenly gone wrong, and that they have to undergo a major surgery struggle with an additional emotional trauma.
Research has indicated that this is one of the reasons why the rate of postnatal depression is higher among women that have had an emergency c-section. This major unprecedented event leaves them in a state of shock coupled with all the postpartum and post-surgery challenges they have to deal with.