Sweating after childbirth

It happens that women complain about sweating after childbirth, although nothing like this has ever happened to them before. There is a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon, because the hormonal system has undergone serious changes and it will take some time to return to normal. Sometimes it is not only hormonal imbalance that causes excessive sweating (hyperhidrosis), but also other alarming symptoms that need to be addressed. [1]

Causes of the postpartum sweating

Pregnancy is accompanied by a sharp drop in the level of estrogen - the female sex hormone. After childbirth there is a gradual return to the original state, which becomes the main cause of sweating. It takes on average from several weeks to two months to restore the hormonal background.

Another factor is fluid accumulation, which is characteristic of pregnancy. During childbirth, the main volume of amniotic fluid is withdrawn, and water-salt metabolism is restored. Sweating is one of the mechanisms of getting rid of the remaining fluid in the body.

After childbirth, women experience milk production, at which time there are also high levels of the hormone prolactin, which contributes to increased secretion of sweat glands. This lasts longer during lactation than in non-lactating moms. [2]

Risk factors

Factors that increase sweating include emotional stress associated with childbirth, heavy physical activity required to care for the baby, chronic sleep deprivation, worrying about the newborn.

Being overweight, gaining weight during pregnancy, depressive state often becomes a risk factor for excessive sweating.

Pathogenesis

Sweating is a natural process of thermoregulation of the body, the main role in which is played by the sympathetic part of the autonomic nervous system. It secretes neuromodulators, which, once on the sweat glands, trigger certain biochemical processes and signals that ensure fluid secretion.

Our body must stay within a temperature range of 36.6º-37ºC to maintain its various functions. Blood enters the human skin, passes through numerous capillaries, cools down and returns through the venous system to the vessels, the heart. This is made possible by sweating.

Symptoms of the postpartum sweating

After childbirth, a woman notices that she starts to sweat more during the day, not only her armpits, but also her legs and head. Sweating at night is especially alarming, she may wake up in absolutely wet pajamas. The first signs sometimes make themselves known by chills, suddenly a wave of heat or cold.

Complications and consequences

Heavy sweating after childbirth usually goes away on its own when the organs and systems involved in childbearing return to their previous level. Hyperhidrosis can be a consequence and complication of infections, mastitis, inflammation of the uterus, postpartum depression.

Diagnostics of the postpartum sweating

Sweating after childbirth usually goes away on its own, but if the symptoms persist after two months, you should consult a doctor. The presence of other manifestations such as fever, fever, bloody vaginal discharge, hardening and soreness of the breasts, excessive fatigue, pain and burning during urination, dizziness, fainting.

In this case, you will have to undergo general therapeutic examination, take general urine and blood tests, blood chemistry, vaginal smear for culture by a gynecologist, others, based on the assumptions of the doctor.

Instrumental methods help to make an accurate diagnosis, in the case of ailments and sweating after childbirth, it can be ultrasound, MRI, CT, X-ray of various internal organs.

Differential diagnosis is made between diagnoses related to the childbearing organ, the breast, the urinary system, and the patient's psyche.

Treatment of the postpartum sweating

Specific methods of treatment of hyperhidrosis with medications do not exist. Even those few drugs that can reduce sweating (sedatives, tranquilizers that reduce the activity of nerve fibers, botolutoxin injections) are unacceptable for a nursing woman.

But what to do with severe sweating after childbirth, how to cope with it? There are a number of rules that will help to survive a difficult period. They are as follows:

• maintain a cool indoor climate, control the humidity, ventilate, this will benefit not only the mother but also the baby;
• Wear cotton underwear and use the same bedding;
• Not trying to lose weight by depriving yourself of a nutritious diet;
• eat at least 4-5 times a day, using dietary foods and cooking methods in the diet;
• Drink plenty of fluids (up to 2 liters per day) to restore water balance;
• take more walks in the fresh air, avoid stress, rest and get enough sleep;
• do regular hygiene.

Vitamins

In the diet of the mother in the postpartum period should include foods rich in various vitamins and minerals, and for faster recovery to select with the help of a doctor a vitamin complex, which would contain vitamins A, E, C, D, B group. A special role in the normalization of the nervous system play vitamins B6, B12, as well as folic acid. Multivitamin complex Elevit Pronatal fully meets all the requirements for pregnant women and after childbirth.

Physiotherapeutic treatment

An effective physiotherapeutic method to overcome sweating after childbirth is a contrast shower, applied several times a day. The hardware includes ionophoresis, the effect of which is based on the action of a weak electric current on the sweat glands.

Folk treatment

To help a woman can come folk methods of treatment of excessive sweating, of which should be chosen safe, for external use, because when taken internally, they with the mother's milk gets to the child and can harm.

For wiping sweaty parts of the body use:

• baking soda solution;
• chamomile and baking soda infusion;
• Decoction of oak bark (a tablespoon of raw materials is poured a glass of boiling water and insisted for half an hour);
• horsetail is combined with alcohol in a ratio of 1:10, put in a dark place for a few days. Before use, it is diluted in half with water;
• freshly brewed green tea;
• lemon (cut into slices).

Homeopathy

In the fight against sweating, homeopathy uses a method of influencing the sympathetic parts of the central nervous system, responsible for thermoregulation of the body, by normalizing its reaction. Extracts of herbs with sedative, astringent action are combined with mineral ingredients. These include Acidum fluoricum, Hepar sulphur, Carbo anim, Pulsatilla, Silicea, Natrum muriaticum and others.

The appointment should be made by a homeopathic physician, taking into account many individual factors, forms and manifestations of hyperhidrosis, as well as breastfeeding, if any.

Surgical treatment

There is a surgical method of treatment of hyperhidrosis - sympathectomy. Its essence is that under general anesthesia, a puncture is made in the chest in the armpit area, where a tube with a video camera at the end is inserted. Through 2 other punctures instruments are inserted, with the help of which the sympathetic trunk is crossed.

Other surgical treatments may be associated with underlying medical conditions, the consequences of which are heavy sweating.

Prevention

Moderate exercise, plenty of air, positive emotions, adequate sleep, in which other family members will help, are the best preventive measures to help overcome postpartum unpleasant symptom.

Forecast

In most cases, excessive sweating after childbirth disappears, the state of the body returns to its former limits, stress is reduced, life is systematized, if we are not talking about a serious diagnosis.