First AF After giving birth

Hi Lovelies,

I'm sure I saw a thread about this once before but can't find it...

I have the (dis)pleasure of having AF re-enter my life. At the risk of TMI - I have found it to be a little clotty at times (which I used to get occassionally pre-preg). The flow is also getting heavier as time progresses - gone from medium to heavy in the space of a day.... can anyone tell me what else I can "expect" and if this sounds normal? Not that there is anything "normal" when it comes to these things! And also - is it ok to use tampons for the first AF after giving birth? I wasn't told otherwise by mids or Ob but thought I had better double check!

TIA

MG

Hi MG,
I went longer than you before starting AF. After my first, I had only a couple of cycles before conceiving again. They weren't heavier, but they were longer (more days of bleeding). Then after no 2, they were heavier, and clotty as you describe.

It seems that many women have a different AF following pg. There is no guarantee what it will be like. My doctor told me that hormone falloff in the second half of your cycle can be irregular, esp in the first few cycles following a pg, but things should settle into a pattern after that. If they continue to be very heavy, check with your doctor.

You should be able to use tampons. I ended up having to buy the super-duper tampons after having always used the "normal" absorbency!

I just had my first AF following DD's birth, and it's very light, as they were after DS no 3. So if you decide to go for no 2, things may be different again. HTH!

MG - My AF after the boys have been very different to each other, after Matthew (who was a c/sec bub) my AF would just arrived out of the blue, no warning that she was on her way, the bleeding was only medium in flow but now after Adrian (VBAC Bub) again AF comes with no warning but OMG the flow is so very heavy and clots, I have never had clots with AF until now and I don`t like it (reminds me too much of my PPH - off course the clots with AF aren`t anywhere near the size I had with my PPH), AF lasts 7 days and is heavy for about 2 of those days before going to medium flow.

I have only just started the mini pill when AF arrived last week and it`s made a difference already in the length of my cycle which was only 5 days, the clots were still there and AF was heavy for 1.5 days, I`m hoping perhaps next cycle the bleeding might decrease since it would be a month of being on the mini pill by then.

I`m a surfboard girl so I`m not sure about using tampons.