Hi, I’m Bobbi-Jo. I’m an RMT at Oona Newmarket and today I want to talk to you a little bit about C-section Scar Work. We usually start scar work about six weeks postpartum but you can have this done at any point in time.
Some of the symptoms you may experience that would be reasons to come in for a scar-work massage would be if you’re getting the little shelf. So, you may have heard of this shelf and basically, all that is is the C-section scar is stuck down. Usually, it’s the bottom part they get stuck and so the top can move freely and that causes the belly to overhang over the scar a little bit even if you don’t have a lot of belly going on you may still end up with a shelf just because the scar is so stuck down. So coming in for massage work can help to decrease that and help to decrease the shelf thing that you may experience.
The other thing that it can help with is if you are getting any pulling so when you go for a walk or you move around, pick up your baby, try to reach up any of these movements can cause a little bit of pulling in the area, if there are adhesions and the scar is stuck. So that can cause a lot of discomforts and we just want to work to decrease that so that you can live your life without discomfort from your C-section scar.
The way that we treat a scar, the first thing we going to do is assess it make sure that everything looks okay especially if you’re six weeks postpartum. We want to make sure that it’s healed properly and there’s no infection before we do any scar work. If you’ve had this scar for years and you want to come in and get this looked at we still want to do the same kind of assessment but there’s less of a risk that you going to have any infection in the area of course.
All we’re going to do is just find a spot, so for the purpose of today’s demo we just have a little line drawn here but yours is going to be much lower than this for actually working with the scar. We going to find the line and just find a spot that doesn’t move. So, I’ll push around see if like, ‘Oh the spots moving okay’. If this spot isn’t, we’re just going to apply the pressure there so, we just want to hold that and you’re going to hold that for like one to two minutes and then move to the next area and repeat the same thing. Once you’re done working with that held pressure, you just want to flush any fluid out of the area just to decrease any chance of swelling in there. Just because breaking up scar tissue can cause swelling sometimes.
The other thing is so that you can actually do some of this work at home. If you’re just six weeks postpartum you may actually want to ask a doctor first if you’re uncomfortable with doing this. Otherwise, ask your RMT, get them to take a look and they can help teach you how to do this. You can also check out this step-by-step guide by my expert midwife. So, you’re going to actually just do the same thing finding a spot that is stuck. You’ll be able to feel this when you check out your scar and you’re just going to find a spot push in towards the incision and just hold. I’m actually just going to get you to do that [good yeah] so it’s as easy as that you just hold for up to two minutes. Then you want to move to the next spot that is stuck and just do that a couple of times alright.
If you have any questions you can always contact our office and we can help you out. Thanks.
Bobbi-Jo, RMT at Oona demonstrates a C-section massage technique for Mamas 6-weeks postpartum.
