When I had my third baby by c-section (3rd c-section) 22 months ago my incision became infected. Six days after he was born I noticed a terrible smell and my abdomen was so bloated I looked 9 months pregnant again. I went to the doctor. My OB started to remove my staples. Skin had grown over the 3rd staple and after tugging a few times it came out and bloody pus squirted all over him. He pushed on my stomach and more fluid just poured out of me. After he'd "wrung out" as much as he could he took one of those long swabs and stuck it in the hole in my incision to see how deep the infection was. It went in all the way, up toward my belly button. He looked pretty worried! After that he put a bandage over the hole, prescribed 5 antibiotics, and sent me home, telling me to come back two days later.
This is a long story so I'll try to make it short. I continued to leak stinky fluid so he got me a pump to suck it out and kept giving me 3-6 different antibiotics for 9 weeks. One the the meds wasn't safe to take while breastfeeding so I had to give my baby formula while I was taking it (he prescribed it twice for 7 days each) and pump and dump my milk. My milk supply plummeted and my son was mostly bottlefed because I could never make enough milk after that. (I'd exclusively BF before without trouble, but this time around stress was preventing my milk from letting down.) The antibiotics I took made us both lactose intolerant (probiotics took care of that though) and gave us yeast infections for months. When my son was 9 weeks old the doctor said the infection was gone, but I still had a little area in my (pardon the term) "fat apron" that was hard and obviously still filled with fluid. He said not to worry.
When my son was 5 months old I'd decided that we'd suffered with the yeast rashes long enough. I decided to try a yeast diet. I made it three days before my milk completely dried up. I started eating a normal diet. A couple weeks later I tried it again. The same thing happened. I went back to a normal diet again. The very next morning I woke up with my belly fat pretty darn firm, like I was holding in water. I'd gained 15LBS over night. I went up two pant sizes. It's been that way ever since, until now. It's suddenly gotten much worse. It's not merely firm, but downright hard. I'm 30 weeks pregnant and I'm worried about what will happen when I have the c-section (they won't let me have a natural birth). And no, I'm not confusing hard, bloated fat with my uterus. I've been pregnant several times and have been overweight each time. :-) My belly fat used to be doughy (any other moms will know what I mean lol) and now it's hard. And it's ONLY in my abdominal fat. I'm not holding in water in my feet, ankles, hands, fingers, or anywhere else. Just there!
Whatever this is, I want to get rid of it before the baby is born. I will NOT subject another baby to antibiotics. Heck, I'm not even going to take painkillers afterward. I don't trust traditional medicine anymore (not because of this but for many other reasons). So if you know what's causing this and what I can do, let me know PLEASE! Is this related to yeast? Or have I had the same infection raging within my abdomen all this time? I want a healthy, exclusively breastfed, drug-free baby! I don't want to take antibiotics! Help!
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