2nd c-section incision is longer than 1st!

S

Shenzhennifer

Registered User
Wasn't sure where to post this...

I recently had a look at my scar, now 12 days old. And to my slight horror, it's almost twice as long as the first! That would explain the less pushing and pulling i felt during the surgery, but geez, it's really long. Anyone else experience this?
 
nope, mine was directly on top of my first. both have healed fantastically well, though (granted, the second one is 4 years old now)...
 
Can't speak from experience but I was watching the documentary "The Business of Being Born" and one OBGYN doctor(who seemed quite opposed to homebirth in general so I doubt she was saying this to turn people off of c-sections or something) said "The first c-section is easy, it's the second and third and fourth that get hard...we open women up to find their intestines sitting on top of their uterus..." So, who knows--maybe it's something to do with the way c-sections are done here in HK, particularly but maybe they had to cut it longer to make it a safer procedure the second time around. Did you ask your surgeon about the particulars of the operation?
 
I haven't asked my surgeon because I didn't know it was any longer until the other day when I was redressing it myself. The operation was very smooth and there was little talking between the surgeon and the trainee (so assume there was no complications), it was fairly quick and seemed totally normal. In fact, during the stitching I even asked the doctor if she just cut over the previous one, and she said yes. What she didn't tell me was that she went over it by another 7-10 cm! Maybe they do have to cut longer sometimes, but as Cara And Biggie replied, theirs are the same. It's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, and I will never be posing it a bikini for anyone, but it's just not nice to have a huge scar when I thought it was going to be small again.
 
thanka2 the obs comments make sense about when there is scar tissue its more likely to be tricky a second time round but I must disagree that as she was opposed to home births she's pro C-section, my obs in Australia was very much against home births but very pro natural delivery. He did everything he could to dissuade me from a C section.....which I am grateful now for.
Also I think second and subsequent babies tend to be bigger so this may account for some of the increase in size.
Finally, there are some star obs who are famed for their tiny C-section scars! From memory one of them used to work out of PWH but left around a year ago to go private.
 
mummymoo said:
thanka2 the obs comments make sense about when there is scar tissue its more likely to be tricky a second time round but I must disagree that as she was opposed to home births she's pro C-section, my obs in Australia was very much against home births but very pro natural delivery. He did everything he could to dissuade me from a C section.....which I am grateful now for.
Also I think second and subsequent babies tend to be bigger so this may account for some of the increase in size.
Finally, there are some star obs who are famed for their tiny C-section scars! From memory one of them used to work out of PWH but left around a year ago to go private.
Click to expand...

Oh, goodness, not this again. What I was trying to say (with regards to another lengthy thread about interventions that can be found on this site and was pretty active recently) is that often times you'll hear people who are very against interventions (such as c-sections) go on about the difficulties of c-sections--of course the midwives and those who are very pro-homebirth (which was the focus of the documentary I mentioned) will point these things out but that was the first time I had ever heard someone from the mainstream maternity care system (an OBGYN who wasn't all that keen on low-intervention and pro-homebirth things) be the one to mention this risk. Just pointed that out. Of course, there are all manner of OBGYNs out there but the system itself (what I've experienced of it throughout two pregnancies) isn't in the business of making sure interventions are kept low (also the focus of the documentary I mentioned). I pointed all this out to say that the person making the comment is not anti-intervention.

And to add--I was simply asking a question not making a statement about some hard and fast fact. I was speculating that that might be part of the reason for a longer scar but only the surgeon could clarify that. And SZJ did a great job of answering the question. It would be a question I would be asking my doctor or surgeon at any followup appointment if I were her.
 
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My second c-section scar is definitely longer than the first. I think this might have had something to do with the fact that my first was born weighing just over 2lbs but my second was over 7lbs!
 
Hmm, well my baby was exactly the same size - 2.9kg (actually 5gm lighter but they rounded up). The cut is definitely bigger than her head. More like her shoulder width plus some! Maybe my last doctor was one of those famed in China for her small cuts. That would have explained all that pushing, pulling and prodding. But I'm still pretty certain that this cut is way longer than the norm. ouch:(
 
Wow, I just examined once again. Not only is it longer, but it's actually 1cm ABOVE my previous scar. So now I have TWO SCARS!!! Grrrrrr.....
 
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