A third of mums who gave birth by caesarean section suffered complications following the arrival of their newborn, according to research.
Despite being a necessity for one in four mums every year, research of 500 UK women who gave birth by c-section, found 33 per cent were prescribed antibiotics afterwards.
While 21 per cent ended up with an infection - which delayed their recovery by more than 2.5 weeks.
And more than one in 20 were readmitted to hospital for an additional 3.5 days on average.
The study, carried out by Essity, found having a c-section made the early days of motherhood more challenging than expected for many - with nine in 10 admitting they would have struggled to cope without help from others.
And while the love was immediate for most, the average mum polled believed it took just over three weeks to completely bond with their little one.
This was largely due to how difficult it was to lift the baby comfortably (47 per cent) and leap up to tend to them as soon as they cried (43 per cent).
Julie Cummings, of the hygiene and health company, which produces Leukomed Sorbact surgical wound dressings, said: “Having a newborn is a challenging time for all mums, regardless of how their little one came into the world.
“But it is standard for the recovery time to be longer for those who have had a caesarean section, simply by the very nature of the procedure - which is a major operation.
“What does need to be addressed is post-partum care, and solutions for those women who find themselves in the unfortunate situation of having wounds with complications or infections - with antimicrobial resistance a real issue now, we need to provide alternative approaches.”
Of all mums polled, 64 per cent were surprised at how much their movement was restricted after the birth - although this differed between those who had a c-section which was planned (58 per cent) versus an emergency (66 per cent).
More than half (54 per cent) found their wound was incredibly sore, and 46 per cent were shocked at how long it took for them to heal.
In addition to looking after the baby, seemingly simple activities felt very challenging for many, such as household chores (67 per cent), getting out of bed (66 per cent) and standing up from a chair (63 per cent).
While feeding, cuddling and changing the baby were difficult - as was pushing them in the buggy - for 28 per cent.
Perhaps understandably, those who had a planned caesarean felt far more practically prepared (74 per cent) than those who were rushed into the operating theatre (24 per cent).
And knowing in advance that the baby would arrive via surgery was emotionally easier to prepare for those who knew it was coming (55 per cent) versus those who didn’t (21 per cent).
The study, carried out via OnePoll, found almost all mums polled (96 per cent) had significant worries immediately after birth.
Top fears included whether they would have to rely on others (58 per cent).
Despite being a necessity for one in four mums every year, research of 500 UK women who gave birth by c-section, found 33 per cent were prescribed antibiotics afterwards.
While 21 per cent ended up with an infection - which delayed their recovery by more than 2.5 weeks.
And more than one in 20 were readmitted to hospital for an additional 3.5 days on average.
The study, carried out by Essity, found having a c-section made the early days of motherhood more challenging than expected for many - with nine in 10 admitting they would have struggled to cope without help from others.
And while the love was immediate for most, the average mum polled believed it took just over three weeks to completely bond with their little one.
This was largely due to how difficult it was to lift the baby comfortably (47 per cent) and leap up to tend to them as soon as they cried (43 per cent).
Julie Cummings, of the hygiene and health company, which produces Leukomed Sorbact surgical wound dressings, said: “Having a newborn is a challenging time for all mums, regardless of how their little one came into the world.
“But it is standard for the recovery time to be longer for those who have had a caesarean section, simply by the very nature of the procedure - which is a major operation.
“What does need to be addressed is post-partum care, and solutions for those women who find themselves in the unfortunate situation of having wounds with complications or infections - with antimicrobial resistance a real issue now, we need to provide alternative approaches.”
Of all mums polled, 64 per cent were surprised at how much their movement was restricted after the birth - although this differed between those who had a c-section which was planned (58 per cent) versus an emergency (66 per cent).
More than half (54 per cent) found their wound was incredibly sore, and 46 per cent were shocked at how long it took for them to heal.
In addition to looking after the baby, seemingly simple activities felt very challenging for many, such as household chores (67 per cent), getting out of bed (66 per cent) and standing up from a chair (63 per cent).
While feeding, cuddling and changing the baby were difficult - as was pushing them in the buggy - for 28 per cent.
Perhaps understandably, those who had a planned caesarean felt far more practically prepared (74 per cent) than those who were rushed into the operating theatre (24 per cent).
And knowing in advance that the baby would arrive via surgery was emotionally easier to prepare for those who knew it was coming (55 per cent) versus those who didn’t (21 per cent).
The study, carried out via OnePoll, found almost all mums polled (96 per cent) had significant worries immediately after birth.
Top fears included whether they would have to rely on others (58 per cent).
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FunTranscript
00:00 We've had no new antibiotics developed since the 1980s.
00:07 We won't have anything to be able to manage infection of any type if we continue to overuse
00:14 them.
00:15 If we don't look at it seriously now, we are in a very dark place.
00:20 I'm a full-time working mum.
00:34 I've got three children, Isla, who's seven, Finn, five and Ivy, four.
00:39 I ended up having three sections really close together.
00:43 Finn was a really, really good baby.
00:44 I couldn't just cuddle him because I was getting sort of stabbing pains still in the scar.
00:49 I was just in so much pain and quickly identified that I had a wound infection.
00:53 I ended up on antibiotics.
00:55 When Finn was eight months old and I found out I was pregnant with Ivy, my consultant
00:59 was alarmed.
01:01 It made me feel worried.
01:02 It was really terrifying knowing that that was going to stretch.
01:06 You get scared of being poorly as a mum.
01:11 You worry that if you get too ill, you're going to end up in hospital and you're going
01:13 to have to leave them behind.
01:19 I'm Karen Uzi.
01:20 I'm a professor of skin integrity at the University of Huddersfield.
01:24 I like the fact that we're able to research in areas that really make a difference to
01:28 patients, but also to patients' families.
01:31 AMR is an umbrella term and it stands for antimicrobial resistance.
01:36 And we're talking about that bacteria, those bugs being resistant to antibiotics, antimicrobials,
01:43 antifungals and antivirals.
01:45 Our whole aim of wound management is to prevent wound infection.
01:49 When a patient develops a wound infection, it becomes quite painful.
01:54 It can really be quite life-changing.
01:56 We can't always prevent it, but we can identify it at an early stage.
02:00 In the fight against antimicrobial resistance, we're using strategies that we call antimicrobial
02:04 stewardship strategies.
02:12 We've got a range of non-medicated wound dressings that we're able to use in our toolkits.
02:17 One of those is Sawbat technology.
02:19 What it does is it binds, inhibits and removes bacteria off the wound bed, which makes it
02:24 a really good thing to use in the fight against antimicrobial resistance because it's not
02:29 donating an active antimicrobial into the wound bed itself.
02:34 We developed the wound infection framework as a way of trying to standardise care and
02:40 support clinicians in their decision-making.
02:42 We chose Sawbat dressings initially because we wanted to be able to use them on all patients
02:47 across our organisation.
02:49 We needed a product that had no contraindications and that was perfectly safe for anybody.
02:54 The results of the framework were really encouraging.
02:56 We saw a significant reduction in the use of bactericidal wound dressing products.
03:01 Remember the function, it binds, inhibits and then removes the bacteria.
03:05 We treat the local infection.
03:07 The patient doesn't need antibiotics and that is the ultimate aim of antimicrobial
03:11 stewardship, to just keep the antibiotics for the patients that really need them.
03:16 When developing an antimicrobial stewardship strategy, the two key areas you need to remember
03:21 is to educate everybody and then implement that strategy.
03:26 We need to think about antibiotics as being like a diamond.
03:29 They will be very rare if we don't look after them now and don't take action and have serious
03:35 interventions.
03:37 They applied the dressing in theatres.
03:38 I didn't give it a second thought.
03:40 It was what appeared to be a comfortable dressing.
03:42 It was really reassuring that when the dressing came off I could see straight away it wasn't
03:46 red.
03:47 It was a really neat, nearly invisible scar.
03:50 No signs of infection.
03:51 I felt different.
03:52 I felt well.
03:53 It was a really good experience.
03:54 I genuinely didn't have to worry.
03:56 I could just forget about it and carry on with making sure I could be the absolute best
04:00 mum that I could be to my babies.
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