Postpartum Care, The Aftermath

Congratulations! You’ve made it through what has most likely been one of the wildest journeys of your life and have come through on the other side with your little bundle of joy. 

Photo by Tuva Mathilde Løland on Unsplash

Through the exhaustion and new mama haze you’ve probably made a couple of key observations at this point. The first and possibly largest of which may be that, as crazy as the journey through pregnancy can be, you’ve now truly been thrown into the deep end. You’re in unfamiliar territory here, this is postpartum and parenthood mama! And as if that whole life adjustment weren’t enough let’s add on some postpartum recovery to spice things up a tad while you’re navigating your new normal. You have your body back but it might seem like something foreign to you now, and that recovery is both mental and physical.

The gradual and yet dramatic changes your body has faced over the last several months have all of a sudden begun to reverse, QUICKLY, in a matter of hours. And though you aren’t sharing your body with your little one in that way anymore it still bears the memory and markings of those transformative months. You’re still changing. It’s a never ending process! 

All of those amped up hormones that were building during pregnancy have taken a sudden nose dive. They’re GONE and their absence doesn’t just wreak havoc on your emotions, hello again tearing up at cute dog commercials or even the slightest INKLING of a suggestion that your baby might, heaven forbid, be growing! Not only are you an emotional trainwreck but those dang hormones have gone and messed with your skin again too.

Great, you might be thinking. It feels like you only just managed to figure out how to handle your crazy hormonal pregnancy skin and now everything’s gone and been flipped on its head. Your skin is getting used to that massive drop in hormones, and coupled with all of the physical strain it just went through? There are bound to be a few issues! Where do you even begin when you’re just getting to know your body again? What should be your first concerns when it comes to skincare postpartum?

Some of the most common skin problems we face as new mamas after pregnancy are acne, eczema, and of course...stretchmarks. But not to worry! The good news here is that nothing is untreatable, and being postpartum you’re now in a veritable  skincare wonderland! 

Photo by Monika Kozub on Unsplash

That’s right, your skincare routine has been freed, at least for the most part. There are still a couple of things to keep in mind especially for breastfeeding mothers. We know that retinoids aren’t advised during pregnancy, and neither are most standard acne treatments because of the risks they can pose to your developing baby. 

Postpartum these items are back on the menu and, in fact, they’re encouraged when it comes to bringing some life and vibrancy back to your tired skin and treating those lovely hormonal breakouts...at least for mothers who aren’t currently breastfeeding. If you are breastfeeding there isn’t much in the way of solid information on what risks using retinoids and standard topical acne treatments might pose to your little nugget. Everything points to there being minimal risk, that only a minute amount is passed through breast milk to your little one, but there is not sufficient data to truly say it’s 100% safe. Of course an easy rule of thumb is if you’re curious about a particular product's safety simply ask your doctor.