The lochia was dark/brownish blood and had a particular mmmm... odour to it. Not offensive, but quite earthy. AF was bright, a little clotty and came with some cramps. The odour was quite different and smelt like fresh AF blood. Sorry...TMI. The two bleeds were very different.

I used Poise regular pads for my lochia. They are slim (not chunky) but because they are designed to absorb urine they had no trouble at all even with heavy bleeding. They also seemed to work wonders at absorbing the odour and I never felt concerned that I might be a bit whiffy.