Sunday afternoon my client gave birth after I had provided 58 hours of support spanning 4 days (38 hours of continuous support Sat-Sun). This was my longest to date. I came home and wanted to spend a little time with the family before going to bed and it didn't go too well. I crashed on the couch and my family decided to take another funny photo of me with my doula sign. They were so excited to show me the photo this morning. I had to share because I know most of you can related to the post birth crash.
How do you recover from a long birth (also called a birth hangover)?
I would like to say that spend the days after a long birth pampering myself. Ideally I would get a massage, drink lots of water, eat healthy food and go to bed early.
In reality, I eat a lot of yummy comfort food, drink coffee to get through the day, take a hot bath and stay up late catching up on everything that I go behind on while at the long birth. I try to give myself a break and not expect to be back at 100%.
For the rest of the week I will probably say (or write) 1,000 times "my apologies, I am recovering from a long birth."
Comments will be approved before showing up.
Rakemah Brooks
October 25, 2017
Thank you so much for this post…. I am waking up the morning after my first Doula experience and was trying to figure out what this is I was feeling last night and still this morning: “doula hangover” lol. After making sure mother and baby were good and settled at the hospital, I felt like I needed pampered! So reassuring to See this post and know this is a normal after Doula feeling! :) thanks again