She got up and went: What's wrong with instant recovery after childbirth
One of the high-profile news this week. - the birth of the third child Kate Middleton and Prince William. Even if you don’t follow the British royal family at all, you’ve probably seen a touching family photo of Kate and William on the steps of the hospital with a young son wrapped in a shawl. The Duchess of Cambridge appeared in public just a few hours after the birth of a child - in a red dress, in heels, with styling and make-up (as noted by The Cut, she "looked more collected than all of us on Monday").
The way Kate looked at ease just a few hours after the third birth caused a heated discussion. Is it too early she left the hospital? Does she really feel good? Do they force her to appear in public so quickly? Tennis player Serena Williams even admitted that at first she thought that Kate had appeared in public only a couple of days after the event: "She’s a damn cool woman! I didn’t wear heels [right after the birth]."
Of course, Kate Middleton is different from most mothers. She is not only a woman, but also a symbol: having agreed to marry William, she accepted the numerous rules of the royal family and the corresponding duties - including the need to appear in public at crucial moments. After the birth of older children, George and Charlotte, she looked almost the same: heels or platform, styling, dress and constant smile. Guessing why only Kate needs only a few hours before appearing in public (according to rumors, she spent the night with Prince George in the hospital, with Princess Charlotte ten hours), it can be infinitely long. Perhaps she did feel well enough or thought that at home she would find it easier to recover, given the possibilities of the royal family. Perhaps she wanted to quickly get rid of the intrusive attention of the press, waiting for the first chance to photograph the baby, or decided to leave the hospital so as not to interfere with other, less well-known patients. Perhaps there really is an unspoken rule to do this as quickly as possible - in order to show the inviolability of the British royal family with one of its kind.
Yet behind each character there is a real story. How much a woman spends after giving birth in a hospital depends on many factors: whether the birth was vaginal or had to resort to a cesarean section, on possible complications and the duration of the process, on the number of children. The rates vary widely for different countries - for example, in Egypt, after vaginal birth, women spend on average half a day in the hospital, and in Ukraine - 6.2 days.
According to a study published in the journal PLOS Medicine, among all high-income countries in the UK, women leave the hospital after giving birth the fastest. British Rachel Holliwell in the column for The Telegraph told how she recovered after giving birth to her third daughter: the woman was offered to be discharged from the hospital only six hours after the end of the process, although she was totally against it. "I was exhausted, and I had a crazy lack of sleep after a long and difficult birth. I needed to rest where I wouldn’t have to think about anything other than breastfeeding and communication with the infant," she writes. "How the hell take it, it can happen at home, where, as soon as I enter the door, I will feel obliged to take care of my two other daughters - and at the same time worry about the laundry basket? " In the end, Holliwell remained in the hospital for three days - but only because she paid for the private ward.
Of course, pregnancy and childbirth is not a disease. If a woman feels comfortable and wants it, nothing prevents her from standing on heels, styling and makeup right in the ward. Someone wants to look in a certain way in photographs from the hospital or when meeting with visiting relatives or relatives, someone helps to control their own appearance, that everything else is also under control, and someone just goes through birth faster and easier than others. immediately tuned to activity - and it would be strange to ban it.
Nevertheless, childbirth is not the easiest process for the body, and it cannot be expected that all women will live it the same way. No matter how a woman prepares for this event, nothing guarantees that she will not face incontinence or will be able to get rid of bloody discharges lasting for several weeks, which occur in the case of vaginal delivery and after cesarean section. Some find it difficult to sit or move - due to abdominal surgery, complications, or other difficulties. Finally, a woman may simply feel exhausted - due to lack of sleep, hormonal surges, overload, new experience and excitement for the child - or face postpartum depression. In this case, it is impossible to reduce everything only to the idea of the "right" kind. How much time a woman spends in a hospital is determined by various factors, and not least by money. The same British women talk a lot about the insufficient funding of the puerperal wards, because of which the medical staff agitates women to leave home as early as possible - hence the notorious six hours to recover.
Sally Baek, the editor of The Telegraph, who also gave birth in the UK, tells of a different experience: she thinks she left the hospital too early because she listened to the advice of the midwives and the dole who said that they should spend as little time as possible more comfortable. “But I left the hospital too soon - I was lost, scared and had not yet learned how to breastfeed so that I feel confident enough,” she says. “Fortunately, my husband, other family members and friends incredibly supported me. But, if there was no such support? "
A pregnant woman and a young mother are under tremendous pressure. Numerous examples of stars that appear in public a few weeks or even days after the baby appeared (remember Natalia Vodianova, who came out on the podium twenty days after the fifth birth!) Only reinforce the feeling that everybody is supposedly capable of enough effort. And even if the work of a woman is in no way connected with her appearance, this does not mean that she does not feel that she is “obliged” to “return to normal” as soon as possible. New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jasinda Arden, who became pregnant during the election campaign and is about to give birth to her first child in June, announced that she would go on maternity leave for six weeks. It is impossible to predict how events will develop, but it can be assumed that returning to work for Arden will mean strict suits and numerous events - even if the body is not quite ready for this.
The idea that any woman immediately after childbirth can (and should) look almost the same as before, and instantly return to the usual way of life, again reduces motherhood to a universal set of actions and reactions. Instead of one set of stereotypes - that any woman, without exception, after childbirth will instantly want to spend time only at home with the child and not go anywhere beyond the playground, clinic, store or circles - another arises: that after the birth of the child, nothing changes unless you need a couple of days (or even hours) to recover. True, there is good news: unlike the Duchess of Cambridge, most of us are not obliged to use the services of a makeup artist and a hairdresser and come before the photographers immediately after birth - unless, of course, we do not want to.
