Hello and welcome to this informative talk about tending to a C-section scar.
My name is Naomi Gale and I've been tending to C-section scars for many years now and have seen a wide range of scars and needs that stem from having had a C-section.
I'm also a doula,
I've been at births and have tended to women postpartum for 40 days and I have seen c-sections in real time,
Tending to those women afterwards.
This work has been an endless gift and also an eye-opening reminder of the lack of care that can come from having had a c-section in our society.
So I'd like to speak to some useful tools and techniques and some supportive ways words for those who have had a c-section.
Now to remind you that there is never any rush to tend to your c-section scar and a reminder that in fact even if you had a c-section 20 years ago this information is still relevant for you.
I'd like you to feel heard and held in this moment whenever that c-section happened.
For some of us,
The C-section was a planned C-section.
It's something that we had always planned and something that we always feel was part and parcel of our journey.
And for some of us,
The C-section happened without wanting it to have happened.
Either way,
The C-section scar remains,
Whether you were in a situation where you chose and opted in,
Or whether you had to have it at an emergency situation.
You For some of us,
The C-section scar is a constant reminder of everything that we didn't want for our birth.
And that can be a challenge in itself.
I'd like to remind you that this scar is something that can come with a physical and emotional and spiritual challenge.
Whether you chose to have the C-section or not,
It remains a physical challenge for some,
Often with a lack of support on what it actually means to tend to that space.
So to begin with,
It's to bring in a few tools to begin to acknowledge what we need.
The first useful part of this journey,
If you have not touched your C-section scar,
Which is quite common for women,
Is to bring in some kind of touch,
To bring in some kind of connection.
It's very easy to disconnect from this space,
To allow ourselves to just completely not touch or be with it.
I like to refer to my husband who recently had a very similar,
In some respects,
A very similar in some respects operation for a hernia.
After this operation,
He lay in bed for a few days,
Completely wiped out,
And spoke to those women who I had supported after a C-section,
Except he didn't have a baby to tend to.
He could just be.
In fact,
It's been interesting to witness his journey with the scar.
I've watched to see if he has connected with it,
And I haven't seen this connection.
And in actual fact,
The hernia has started to return above the scar,
Having only had this operation only a year ago.
I find scars and this connection very interesting.
Sometimes we even look at our knee.
I am one of those people who remembers the exact fall that I had,
Which has left a scar on my knee.
And I think about that time when I felt completely and utterly beside myself with the pain and discomfort of that scar.
I also think about my son who cut his finger quite drastically with his penknife when he was whittling wood in front of all of his friends.
I think about everything that had come up for him around that scar and every now and then it comes up when he sees the scar on his finger.
I speak to these moments and these different scars to remind you that there are really important notes to be made around scars that are on our bodies and they all come with some kind of emotional holding.
So when we talk about a C-section scar,
It's quite a huge journey to go on,
Especially if we haven't connected with it at any point.
To begin with a really useful tool that I gave a lot of the parents that I worked with was to connect to the scar with like a makeup brush.
You could buy one specifically or you might have one that's not used or washed and you'd be happy to utilize it on the scar.
You bring in the brush as a way of connecting with the scar and as a way of bringing in touch so that it can feel like it is being touched without you actually having to physically touch it.
It's a really useful tool.
So bring the brush into the space,
Bring the breath into the space.
And begin to lightly touch the brush along the scar and see how that feels.
Allow yourself to feel all the emotions or anything that's there to come up and surface and repeat this practice as many times as you need.
That's the first step of connecting with the scar and tending to it,
In fact.
The next step after this is to bring in a level of touch to the C-section scar.
Now,
This touch does not need to be anything more than simply holding it.
A really lovely practice is to bring in breath and hold the c-section area with your hand and to notice what comes up as a result of this holding.
It's like you would have tended to the pelvis in any other way by holding your hand on your heart and holding your hand on your womb and just bringing in breath.
It's the same thing but you're specifically holding the scar area.
Almost like if there was some kind of accident and you needed to tend to your scraped knee you would bring in a hand of touch to that space.
Hands are really important within this journey and allow for this tending and this mothering in this moment.
That would be the next stage of tending to that scar.
And as we continue to be with the scar,
Continue to be with the thoughts and the feelings and the sensations that arise,
We need to allow for this because when we don't connect to the scar,
We tend to ignore that the scar even exists.
And that's when we can start to see physical challenges that can come up later.
So once you've allowed yourself to be with those two parts of the journey,
Now it's time to tend to it in a more deeper way,
In a way that can bring up more to the surface emotionally,
As well as allowing for a physical tending that's really needed.
One of the things that I have spoken to many times with the women that I have worked with,
And one of the things that I have found quite shocking,
Is the lack of acknowledgement that a scar needs to be massaged.
It's part and parcel of the journey of having had this scar.
This is particularly important for something like a c-section where they went through multiple layers and therefore what can happen is in the healing process,
Whether years down the line or months down the line,
What can happen is that there is some kind of holding within the tissues and sometimes lumps and bumps can sometimes exist and we need to tend to them.
One of the most challenging moments that I saw was when I was in a bell tent tending to women in a festival.
A woman had purposely come to the festival to meet me and I felt very overwhelmed by that in itself.
But she said that the next few days she was going to have to have her C-section scar reopened and re-sewn back up.
And this was because a hernia had actually existed on her C-section scar.
The one thing she wished she had done is tend to this scar,
Touch it and start to bring in this massage touch,
Which is why I'm really passionate about it after having met this woman in this tent,
In this festival.
She went on and had that operation and actually what she ended up doing and we spoke to in this ceremony that we created was a connection of the C-section itself going back to that moment and talking about this operation as a reclamation of the journey to this point.
One of the most beautiful moments and I can refer back to over these years of doing this work.
So what it looks like is simply bringing in two fingers the first finger in the second finger and imagine yourself doing circles across the scar.
So what we're doing is we're working with the fascia because the fascia is what's obviously holding here into the tissues and then what ends up happening is that the bulges and the discomfort and the tightening can come from as a result of not tending to it.
Now there are of options with wearing bands for example around the belly and all these things exist but honestly what I found is over the years that this very simple practice can be genuinely life-changing.
So simply allow yourself to bring in some kind of oil.
It could be anything simple from coconut oil to scar.
You know,
You can exist with like bio oil,
But I'm not sure about all of the credentials of all the oils that exist,
Including bio oil.
I don't know much about the ingredients of these things.
I'm a massive fan of keeping it as organic as possible.
So whatever feels resonant for you and then bringing that oil into the space and allowing it to either be on your hands first or be placed on the scarf.
First and you're going to bring in the depth that you need at any given moment and this is where your own tending and your own acknowledgement is really important and that's why it's so useful to do this for yourself because you can do it repeatedly every single day.
You could do it after a shower or bath.
You could do it at a certain ritual.
I'm going to massage my c-section scar every time I clean my teeth and what we're doing is we're allowing this space to be of a ritual of sorts.
It's like bringing in the breath and it's bringing in the acknowledgement But sometimes life gets in the way and sometimes it's simply I'm tending to my scar because I physically need to.
Whatever feels accessible to you in any given moment when tending to this space.
So bringing in that first finger and the second finger in the circles that I'm speaking to means that you're moving those circles across the C-section scar.
So you're bringing it in from one end of the scar,
Moving those circles to the depths that you need to the other end of the scar and back again and so on and so forth.
Start to massage the rest of the belly really be in this space and bringing in this mothering intending touch but above all else is continuing to be with this scar,
This touch,
This acknowledgement,
Moving with the fascia.
Now for some women what can come up here is a huge holding pattern that hasn't been tended to before.
So I would,
One of my recommendations for this is if you haven't tended to the scar before,
It's allowing yourself to be in this moment when you have time and space.
Because if something does come up,
Which I have seen many times because when you're working with the c-section scar with intention in this intention becomes this sacred acknowledgement of the space and this sacred acknowledgement can bring up emotion and so if you're not giving yourself time and space if you're in a hurry and you're just going to massage the c-section scar for the first time it might bring up something that you weren't necessarily ready for and it might not It might be that you're expecting it to bring something up and it doesn't bring anything up.
It may be that it doesn't bring anything up for the first few times and then suddenly down the line some kind of emotion does arise.
But allow yourself the right time to do it,
Rather than this being a should.
This is a I could tend to my scar,
And when I'm ready,
I will tend to my scar.
But also.
To not put it off for so long that it doesn't happen because that's also where tightness and discomfort can arise from what I've seen.
A really beautiful practice could be to bring in this level of touch to the womb.
Allowing that touch will really allow for this acknowledgement of this space and to allow you to remind yourself that you grew this whole being with eyes and fingernails and this whole space was this creative hub.
Not necessarily because you grew a baby,
But because you grew,
You grew something.
And that's a really beautiful reminder of how amazing your body is.
Because sometimes a c-section comes with an ending that doesn't happen for everybody.
Everybody's ending after a c-section is different and so I want to acknowledge however this journey has gone for you.
I'm really here holding and witnessing you in that.
Continue to be with your breath in this moment.
Continue to be with whatever is arising.
Feel it.
Be with it.
Seek further support with it if anything comes up that feels like it needs more tending.
And as and when you're ready,
Return back to that practice.
It's really a beautiful practice that might bring up a lot,
But overall you'll welcome that journey.
So that's my introduction to C-section scar tending.
I hope that something within that feels really useful.
And I'm just really passionate that this information is disseminated through the women that you might meet along the way.
So for example,
If you are friends with another new mum who also has a C-section,
Don't be afraid to remind her that her scar is where of this tending and show her what you did to tend to your scar because we all need this information and it doesn't necessarily come from the places that it should so I just want to celebrate you for being here witnessing yourself with your needs and tending to your needs and your mothering as and when it arises the space arises for that holding you witnessing you always
