New mothers, here’s how to take care of yourself post-pregnancy

Forget the housework for a while – or get someone who can help you with all the chores. (Source: Thinkstock Images)

As a new mother, you’ve endured the long wait, and possibly the discomfort of pregnancy. Soon after delivery though, parenting responsibilities set in, as does the routine of feeding-changing-sleeping and getting used to baby’s rhythms. This makes us forget how fragile the woman’s body really is.

During this time, a woman’s body is healing, re-adjusting, and needs to re-build its strength. Often put in second-place after baby, a mother’s health is as important as a newborn’s. During this period, you may experience a range of post-natal problems: post-natal infections, excessive bleeding, mood swings, pain in the perineal area, discomfort during sex, hair loss, post-natal depression, breast soreness and tenderness.

This is a special time in your life – a time where your focus needs to be on your baby, and equally importantly, on your body. Forget the housework for a while – or get someone who can help you with all the chores. It may be difficult for you, but your mind, body and spirit will be in better shape if you can get rest, get a gentle post-partum massage, and de-stress.

Here are some tips you can keep in mind:

1) Sleep when your baby sleeps: Please try and resist the urge to clean the house. Or wash nappies. Or fold clothes. Or cook. Or meet the steady stream of visitors. For the first six weeks, do only what needs to be done. Your body is an amazing healing-machine, but it needs time, rest and peace.

2) Uterus and Lochia (bleeding): Immediately after delivery, your uterus begins to contract – commonly called ‘postpartum aches and pains’. Keeping your bladder empty helps the uterus contract effectively, and prevents too much bleeding. If you are doing too much around the house, bleeding can increase and become bright red. That’s when you know you need to take it easy.

3) Caring for yourself while breastfeeding: Breastfeeding is a learning process for you and the baby – babies instinctively know how to suckle, but not necessarily how to breastfeed. In the first week, particularly after the body produces clostrum – the nutrient-rich and thick milk, it is normal to have some pain and tenderness. If baby does not ‘latch’ properly, breastfeeding can continue to be a painful and difficult process for both mother and child.

Here are some things you can do to help relieve soreness and heal cracked/chapped breasts:
* Keep breasts open to air frequently: this helps reduce the possibility of infections
* Warm water or tea bag compress for 15-20 minutes, 3-4 times a day
* Avoid underwire bras
* Rub a bit of your own breast milk and some virgin coconut oil onto the nipple and breast area – both are rich in Lauric Acid – one of nature’s most powerful wound-healing, anti-inflammatory agents

4) Post-partum massage: Ayurveda recommends 42 days of rest and care – because these 42 days influence a woman’s health, and prepare her for the journey ahead. If you cannot do the full 42 days for some reason, regular post-partum massage is an effective and holistic way to help the process. There are unique (and scientifically proven) post-partum benefits of regular massage, and they include hormone regulation, reduced swelling, better sleep, and improved breastfeeding. More advanced massage therapy helps restore the body to its pre-pregnancy condition, and assists with C-section recovery.

5) Caring for your mental health: Having a baby is exhilarating. It can also be exhausting. 80 per cent of new mothers have severe mood-swings – known as baby blues – and it is important not to ignore these symptoms. About 10 percent suffer from major post-partum depression. Traditionally, doctors have blamed hormones for this, but chemistry can’t explain everything.

Don’t give up your previous interests, don’t take on all the household chores, and get reassurance and support from your family and partner.

Rest, relaxation and sound sleep is imperative. If your ‘blues’ last longer than a few weeks, speak to your gynaecologist.

Tips for the new dad
* Helping your significant other with some of the little things will bring her much joy, relief and peace of mind.

* Offer to help watch over baby while she takes a nap

* Make dinner for her once in a while

* Help her create a schedule and set priorities

* Send her for a massage, a pedicure or a manicure

* Sterilise the bottles, fold the nappies

* Give baby a massage once in a while – because baby needs to grow the bond with dad as much as with mum

The author is the Managing Director and founder of Coconess, which makes virgin coconut oil based products

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Why are men, in their early 30s, losing hair?

Doctors say that the major reasons for hair loss are iron deficiency, lack of sunlight (vitamin D-3), stress, irregular diets, hormonal changes and related diseases like thyroid and diabetes.

After a particularly hectic Saturday morning when Dr Narendra Patwardhan checked as many as 11 patients with hair loss, he simply deferred the remaining appointments and wished he could take on a more challenging case.  The number of patients with hair loss has increased over the years and out of 10 new patients at least eight are men. What is disturbing is that a sizeable number of them are in their 20s and 30s seeking hair restoration surgery,  says the president of the Association of Hair Restoration Surgeons of India.

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Telogen Effluvium – a typical hair loss condition among youngsters is characterised by diffused hair shedding. It is a reactive process caused by a metabolic condition or hormonal stress or by medications. Generally, the recovery is spontaneous, occuring within six months. However, the vast majority of hair loss cases fall into the male (androgenetic) or female (pseudoandrogenetic) pattern baldness. This is caused by the effect of the hormone that leads to gradual and progressive hair loss. While medication like minoxidil does help, hair transplants or hair restoration surgeries are now the norm.

With 60-70 patients being examined for hair loss on a daily basis, Patwardhan says the major reasons are iron deficiency, lack of sunlight (vitamin D-3), stress, irregular diets, hormonal changes and related diseases like thyroid and diabetes. There has been a rise in the number of young men with hair loss.  They are mainly from the IT sector. Out of 100 patients, at least 30 are from this group and the ages vary from 25 to 35 years. I have had frantic parents calling me several times to provide some solution,  he adds.

In a month I do take on six-eight patients for hair restoration surgery but this is a tedious method and, like pregnancy, patients need to wait for the hair to grow,  he explained. The surgery process could take around six hours under local anaesthesia for the follicular unit transplant (FUT). A small strip of hair bearing scalp is removed from the back and side of the head and these hair usually grow throughout a lifetime.

The donor region is stitched in such a way that a narrow scar is produced but is hidden by overlying hair. Special instruments are used to make small slits in the bald area and the grafts are then inserted. The growth of the transplanted hair starts in about six weeks and continues for nine months to a year.

Another technique, the follicular unit extraction (FUE), too, is fast evolving and is being adopted quite regularly. In this, a small round punch is used to extract follicular units from a patient’s bald resistant donor areas one at a time. These 1, 2, 3 and 4 groupings (called follicular unit grafts) are then transplanted into a patient’s balding areas. It may cost Rs 80/100 per graft in the FUE technique method while the Strip (FUT) method may cost Rs 80,000 onwards.

It is normal to lose 50-100 strands in a day. But the patient may have lost at least 30-60,000 hair by the time they require a hair transplant, says Dr Rajesh Rajput, founder president of the Association of Hair Restoration Surgeons of India and who has performed more than 5,000 hair transplants in the last 20 years.

Dr Rajput has, however, also done a study which shows cyclical medicine helped in improving hair count and hair calibre and in which control of hair loss was better.  Promoting hair growth requires supplementation of certain minerals, vitamins, amino acids, and antioxidants, as well as control of sebum secretion and anti-dandruff treatment. However, there are drawbacks to using vitamins, minerals, and amino acids together. Excess of vitamin A and E lead to improper keratinization of hair and cause hair loss. Absorption of minerals and vitamins is dependent on their relative deficiency in the body; iron and calcium given together reduce the absorption of one another,  he explained.

In a study of 500 patients, Dr Rajput combined the use of antioxidants, iron, calcium, zinc, amino acids and Vitamins E, D and C with minoxidil and finasteride to control hair loss, reverse miniaturization and achieve new hair growth within two to four months. The study was published in Hair Transplant International Forum and showed the combination treatment of drugs worked.  The patients were followed up for two years and there was a definite improvement,  he said.

Everyone wants to look good and advertisements promising that  crowning glory  and increased confidence at work lure several potential customers. This has also led to several mushrooming hair transplant clinics.  There is simply no data and no checks on this,  says Patwardhan who admits that the association receives complaints about non allopathic doctors who have been performing these surgeries.    ens

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