Diet taboos for caesarean section

Absolutely no food that is prone to flatulence or difficult to digest for 6 hours after surgery and before passing gas.； Within 1 week after exhaustion, avoid foods that are strong in stimulating blood circulation, too cold, too oily, and too irritating. ； There are no foods that are 100% off-limits during the puerperium. As long as they suit your body constitution and you don’t feel any discomfort after eating them, you can try them in small amounts without being bound by a rigid list.

In the first 6 hours after being pushed back to the ward, the anesthetic had not completely worn off, and the swallowing reflex may not have recovered. Don't listen to the elderly at home who said that I was "starving" and was in a hurry to feed me. Even water could only be moistened with cotton swabs to moisten my lips. I accompanied my cousin during a caesarean section last year, and her mother-in-law felt sorry for her that she was exhausted just after giving birth. As soon as she returned to the ward, she brought brown sugar water to her mouth to feed her, but the nurse stopped her on the spot - it is not a joke to choke on the trachea when feeding, and brown sugar water produces gas, so if you drink it without gas, your belly will be so distended that it will cause pain to the sutured wound. My best friend was even more exaggerated. She didn't fart on the second day after the operation, so her mother secretly stuffed her with half a boiled corn. As a result, she was so swollen that she cried in the middle of the night. Even the painkillers couldn't suppress the pain from the wound. In the end, she had to have a gastric tube inserted for two days before she recovered. Now she talks about it and calls her mother "a cheater."

Many people say that they need to drink radish water for flatulence. Indeed, many people can breathe quickly after drinking it. However, some gastroenterologists have mentioned that for people who have a lot of stomach acid and are prone to reflux, drinking radish water will actually aggravate the burning sensation in the stomach. If the bloating is really uncomfortable, it is better to endure the pain and turn over a few times, which is more effective than any other folk remedies.

Don't rush to take supplements in the first two days after passing gas. Put the old hen soup, pig's trotters soup, and oxtail soup first. The thick soup with a thick oil layer that can condense will not only easily block the milk, but also the stomach that has just resumed peristalsis can't handle it at all. I saw a mother in the maternity ward before. She had just passed the gas and her husband brought a thermos bucket to give him oxtail soup. She drank two large bowls and had diarrhea three times that day. She didn't dare to use the toilet and was so panicked that she was sweating from the wound. In the end, she asked a nurse to prescribe antidiarrheal medicine to stop it. There are also ingredients such as ginseng, longan, and rice wine-added stews that are strong in activating blood circulation. Do not touch them in the first week. In fact, the views of Chinese and Western medicine are somewhat different: Traditional Chinese medicine believes that a small amount of blood-activating ingredients can help eliminate lochia. Western medicine believes that the wound is still bleeding a week after the operation, and eating these will increase the amount of bleeding. The current general clinical advice is to avoid them in the first week. If the lochia is not discharged smoothly after one week, just add a small amount under the guidance of a doctor. There is no need to argue about "can you eat it?"

As for what the older generation says, "Fruits must be boiled before they can be eaten," you don't have to listen to them all. Many evidence-based obstetrics guidelines now mention that as long as they are at room temperature and have no reaction when you eat them normally, such as apples, strawberries, and blueberries, you can eat them directly about 3 days after having a flatus. Cooked ones will lose a lot of vitamins and can easily raise blood sugar. Of course, if you have a weak spleen and stomach and usually have diarrhea after eating a cold apple, there is nothing wrong with warming it up before eating it. There is no need to take sides.

There is also the mythical "list of foods to restore breast milk", such as leeks, barley tea, beans, and Sichuan peppercorns. It's really not that exaggerated. I met a mother from Sichuan and Chongqing a while ago. She has a physique that tolerates spicy food. She secretly ate mildly spicy hot pot a week after giving birth. Her breast milk did not return, and the wound did not become inflamed. Instead, she was in a good mood and had more milk than before when she drank plain porridge every day. These so-called "taboos" are essentially based on your own living habits. If you have lived for twenty or thirty years and have no problem eating something, as long as you don't eat two or three pounds at one time, it will not suddenly turn into a scourge. On the contrary, many mothers who have enough milk are so anxious that they can't sleep because of accidentally eating a bite of leeks, and the emotional impact really makes them return to breastfeeding.

Oh, by the way, there is another point that is easily overlooked. Try to avoid carbonated drinks and a lot of soy products in the first two weeks after surgery. I am prone to constipation after childbirth. If I get bloated again, I don’t dare to pull hard when going to the toilet because it will hurt the wound. Once I have tried the taste once, I will never want to try it a second time. If you have an allergic constitution, eating mangoes, seafood, etc. will make you itchy easily. It is best to endure it for the first two weeks after the operation. If an allergic reaction is triggered and you can't help but scratch the wound when itching, you will really suffer.

I have asked a familiar head nurse in the obstetrics department before. She has been working in the obstetrics department for almost 20 years. She has seen too many people suffer from eating indiscriminately, and she has also seen many people who recovered well by eating a little bit of everything. To sum up, there are really not so many restrictions on the diet for caesarean section. The core is "step by step, comfort first", which is much more reliable than the dozens of taboo lists listed on the Internet.