It isn’t vain to think about just how your vagina will change after the watermelon-sized baby has passed through the walls of your vajayjay.

FACT: 50% of first-time mothers will need stitches after having their baby.

Jasmin looked at her vagina post-birth with a mirror. Here’s what she said:

“After I had my son in 2006, I made the mistake of looking. I’m only speaking for myself I don’t know if it looks the same for everyone. But when I looked it was about a week after my son was born it looked “open”. It looked weird. I can’t even find the right words to describe it lol. I looked again about 5 weeks later and it looked normal again lol. I didn’t get stitches. With my daughter I did get stitches and I was curious about how it looked. I looked and I saw my stitches and it freaked me out only because I never thought I would get stitches there lol”

FACT: 40% of women will have at least one episode of incontinence after giving birth.

Ilena was happy with her vagina post-birth:

“I couldn’t even bend over well enough let alone spread my legs apart to stick a mirror between my legs to look, …..but funny story for you….as my doctor was stitching me up after a horrible episiotomy, i told her to make it look amazing….. she chuckled and said she would do her best, when she was done…. i asked dh ‘how does it look?…..And he said “just like before”…..ummm i STILL dont know how to take that…LOL, but i CAN tell you this….my chucha looks (in my opinion) a lot more attractive? Before i never really considered my chucha ‘flauntable’, now ….i consider it flauntable,….i can go into details, but it is very tmi, and you ladies probably are NOT interested in all the details. But i think it looks better now than it did before.”

FACT: The world’s longest pregnancy was 375 days – over one year!

Husbands.. No Tact: Allison said:

“Well, Dear Husband accidentally made the mistake of walking by while I was being cleaned up and given a couple stitches. His words, “A massive bloody gunshot wound.” Midway through pushing they asked if I wanted a mirror. I said sure and it helped so much to see my progress!”

Elisa and her Mum saying it looked like a bucket….

“I looked weeks after (if I looked the week off, I blocked it from my memory lol) and hated that I had a nasty skin tag from the stitches. It hurt during sex and I was too embarrassed to go in about it or talk to my husband about it. Then when I had my second (19 months later) I didn’t tear and they just snipped the skin tag off and put two stitches in. I felt sooooo dumb that I didn’t get it taken care of sooner lol. Now when I look down there, everything looks totally normal and DH can’t tell I’ve had two kiddos =] But I do remember everything feeling very swollen for a while after. My mum always freaked me out saying she’s like a bucket down there after three kids??? WTH does that mean?? lol! Maybe she doesn’t know what Kegels (sp?) are ;] I’m too grossed out to ask her hahaha”

June shares her story:

“I looked the day after, and, honestly, it wasn’t bad. I was in the bath tub at the time, so there wasn’t much of a blood issue. I wasn’t too swollen, but I only pushed for about 15 minutes. I had an episiotomy, and that kind of looked like a normal wound with stiches (it healed up perfectly, no issues, no raised scarring, no pain). It wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting. I think it looks a little different now, not awful or bigger, but like I can see more of the parts that are inside? I asked by doctor about it, and she said that everything is just more front facing. Nothing’s coming out or out of place necessarily, but it has shifted a bit. DH says it feels no different, but I don’t know how observant he’d be of these things anyway lol.”

I tore all the way to my anus….

“I tore a lot with my first born. I tore to my anus, and it took months to heal. Before it fully healed (about 10 months), it was really painful sitting and going to the bathroom. After delivery, I asked my doctor not to sew me up too tight. I was worried about it being too tight down there later, and I didn’t want it to be painful. She said, “Usually it’s the husbands who ask me that!” Go figure. Anyway, sex was a lot better after delivery. Well, not immediately! After childbirth, you can’t have sex for about 8 weeks, and even then, you probably won’t want to (in my experience) for a little while longer. But the skin around the entrance to my vagina was no longer too tight. Some positions that used to be uncomfortable no longer were. After the birth of my second child, things bounced back much more quickly. I only had a superficial tear that required a single stitch. Healing took no time at all! I still bled for weeks and weeks and weeks (I bled about 10 weeks after each birth). But after that, I was good to go physically! In my experience, the vagina is tighter post-childbirth than before childbirth for a while. I think most women who go through childbirth will tell you that. It takes a little bit for things to relax down there again. I don’t think my scarring was that bad. I never really looked, and my husband hasn’t said anything. I’ve heard of some women saying their scarring was bad.” Via Reddit Kegel Exercisers (like this one pictured from Adult Toy Megastore) are great to get the kegel muscles working again after birth. Daisy says: “I didn’t look with my first, but I saw my husbands face when he accidentally got a peak of the dr stitching me up. Poor guy!”

Anonymous from our ‘Ask Stay at Home Mum’ said:

“Looks and feels the same, probably because I had a c-section lol.”

Do you want fries with that?

“A good friend of mine had her baby just a few days ago and she said hers was purple and very swollen. The word hamburger was also used to describe it….” Ladies this isnt gonna be pretty! Lol

Torn Vaginas Heal Better

“I am a Certified Nurse Midwife who is lucky enough to help women have babies most days. Tearing is a normal part of childbirth for many women. When tissue tears, the edges are jagged, which actually heals better then when tissue is cut and there are straight edges on both sides. Try spreading your fingers on both hands and putting them together like a puzzle, they fit well. In contrast, when you put the edges of your hands together with your palms up, they don’t go together as easily. That’s a rough example. It is considered normal for women to have 1st-2nd degree lacerations after childbirth. The stages of lacerations are dependent on what type of tissue is involved in the tear. To help prevent tearing, providers should help ease out your baby while you are pushing. It is very important for mommas to listen to when their provider says something to the effect of “little pushes now” or “just grunt the baby out” as we don’t want the baby to come flying out. Other things that may be helpful are warm compresses to your bottom, possibly perineal massage before delivery (no good evidence regarding this), or just stretching out the tissue by rolling around on a birth ball (workout ball) during pregnancy. Stitches are placed to help the tissue heal, and although women heal at different rates, most women will tell you that the feel back to normal in a few months. At 6 week postpartum visits, most vaginas look pretty much back to normal. Hope that helps some.”

Kym goes into a LOT of detail:

“I used a mirror to look with both my kids, I though seeing the birth was amazing. LoL I did notice though that after the delivery of the kids before the delivery of the placenta there is a big hole still and it looks well like a big whole, like an open wound I guess. It’s bloody and messy, so if you do not have a strong stomach I would not look. You can still watch though just make sure you give the mirror back as soon as the baby is out, and do not look down there afterwards. To answer your question it takes 6 weeks to be “back to normal” that’s why they schedule a 6 week check up. However you do not stay fully dilated 10 cm for 6 weeks, you probably dilate back to at least 1 cm if not 0 before you even leave the hospital. One thing though that I was not prepared for just to warn you before I had my daughter. Was that after they delivered the placenta the nurses put sheets and buckets underneath me and started pushing on my stomach to get all the after birth out and make sure that my uterus was contracting back up to normal. This I was NOT prepared for! It was gross! Blood gushing out everywhere, and It was … weird! With my son though they did not do that, so I am not sure if they do that with every pregnancy or if it was just my nurse that I had, but Ewww! I’ll never get that out of my head!”

Another few from Ask Stay at Home Mum include:

“To quote my drunk father-in-law speaking about his third wife….’Four big headed kids and her shit is as tight today as the day we met”…. The We-Connect Kegel Exerciser from Adult Toy Megastore “Oh my god. I looked at my vagina with a mirror about 2 hours after a vaginal birth. It took my breath away….but not in a nice way. It looked like the Grand Canyon. I was very aware and comfortable with how my vagina, labia and clitoris looked before childbirth. I think seeing it so swollen and feeling so different was a shock. After finishing breastfeeding and doing my exercises religiously I can say that it is back to a different type of normal….which I am soo very happy with.” “Me and my DP agree that it looks a little smaller. When pregnant it just gets so puffy and yuck so after pushing a baby out of it it’s all firmed back up to normal and it seems smaller than before it’s probably not so my final answer is no. It hasn’t changed.”

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