Characteristics of postpartum pain associated with vaginal and caesarean births

It is desirable that nursing mothers should return to normal activities so as to encourage early care of the newborn. This desire will be met if the common postpartum maternal morbidities are identified and managed accordingly.

To identify and characterize postpartum pain in the immediate postpartum period after vaginal or caesarean birth.

Women who delivered in our hospital; over 18 years, delivered of a live neonate and were in hospital for at least 2 days were studied. The socio-demographic characteristics, site of pain and self report of pain were recorded. The mothers were interviewed to describe the nature of postpartum pain using the Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire.

A total of 116 patients participated in the study; 50/116 were nulliparous, and 100/116 received prenatal care. The incidence of pain was 82.8%. 55/74 women who had vaginal delivery and 41/42 post c-section women had pain. Only 51/96 women reported their pain and a good proportion of the women received some form of analgesia for the pain. Post c-section women were more likely to use affective descriptors than those who had vaginal delivery. The use of affective descriptors provoked higher VAS scores.

Pain in the immediate postpartum period is common and more severe in women who had caesarean section than vaginal delivery. There is need to improve current methods of managing postpartum pain in the sub-region.