For a mother, the first few months after delivery are crucial since the uterus after expanding due to delivery, shrinks back to its normal size. Moreover the tendons, ligaments and muscles connected to the uterus begin to regain the power and strength lost during labor. A lot of emphasis is put on postnatal care in Ayurveda.

Ayurveda suggested diet tips:
According to your digestive system, you must take Sesame oil i.e. Til oil and ghee i.e. clarified butter after mixing it with panchkola. Once this mixture has been digested, you must consume rice gruel and milk that is medicated with Vidharigandhadi gana or panchkola. Apart from these, you must consume jaggery water for about a week. After a week, you must eat foods that are easily digestible to help you regain your strength.

Do's and Don'ts:
1. Do massage yourself with Vatahara Oil
2. Do bathe with warm water
3. Do keep your perineum and breasts clean
4. Do urinate every 5 hours
5. Do breastfeed properly
6. Don't consume food irregularly
7. Don't have stale or cold food
8. Don't retain urine or feces
9. Don't indulge in sex or exercise

Ayurvedic medicines and herbs:
All the medicines and herbs mentioned below are never advised together. An ayurvedic specialist will usually give you a combination of a few medicines depending on your symptoms and condition.
1. Dashamoolarishtam: Dashamoolarishtam is extremely effective in boosting your immunity and keeping infections at bay. It is usually prescribed for the first few months as it also helps reduce inflammation and pain.
2. Jeerakarishtam: Jeerakarishtam is well known for inducing normal lactation, and is usually prescribed to mothers during the monsoon or winter seasons. This is because it keeps the body warm owing to its hot nature.
3. Shatavari Gulam: Improve lactation and achieve overall hormonal balance by consuming Shatavari Gulam.
4. Pulileham: Pulileham is administered to new mothers from the third week onwards for about a month and half.
5. Shatavari: Shatavari herb is mixed with boiling milk to improve the production of breast milk and avoid post partum depression. It is also useful for normal involution of the uterus.
6. Musta: Apart from improving breast milk production, musta herbs also relieves clogs in milk ducts and inflammation.

How Ayurveda Helps In Postnatal Care - Post Pregnancy Health 

What is menopause?
Menopause is that phase in the life of a woman when she can no longer reproduce. It involves the loss of fertility and the cessation of the menstrual cycle. The woman will stop bleeding every month and the ovaries stop producing eggs that can be fertilized. Menopause normally sets on after the age of 40 and bleeding may permanently stop by the age of 50.

Post menopausal bleeding
You are known to reach menopause when you have not been bleeding for 1 entire year. Even a small amount of spotting should not have taken place. Post-menopausal bleeding is when bleeding occurs after a year of attaining menopause. It can be a serious health disorder and requires medical attention without any further delay.

Reasons behind post menopausal bleeding

Polyps that are mostly non-cancerous, unwanted growths on the cervical canal, uterus or ovaries are known to cause post-menopausal bleeding.
Thinning of the endometrium that lines the uterus can cause unexpected bleeding. It can be due to the rapidly receding levels of estrogen in the blood. It is also known as endometrial atrophy.
Endometrial hyperplasia is a condition that leads to the thickening of the inner lining of uterus (endometrium). It also leads to the growth of abnormal and malignant cells.
Endometrial cancer
Other health conditions such as reaction to hormone therapy, infections of the blood or reproductive organs, certain medications and blood-thinning drugs
Cancer of the ovaries, uterus or cervix
How it can be treated?

For diagnosis, you can undergo blood tests, ultrasounds, sonography and biopsy.
Hysterectomy is done to remove the uterus and cervix can be conducted for a complete cure. It also removes the ovaries, fallopian tubes and other lymph nodes.
Chemotherapy and other radiation therapies may be done for those who are in an advanced stage of endometrial cancer.
Medications such hormone regulators must be taken to prevent complications.

Post Menopausal Bleeding - Is it Normal?

C-section or Caesarean section is a surgery performed to deliver a baby. The baby is taken out from the abdomen through an incision in the abdominal wall. This surgery is performed when there is some sort of physical difficulty in natural childbirth through the vagina. Other reasons for performing a C-section are when the mother is carrying more than one baby, or the health of the baby is in danger. It could also be because of an undesirable fetal position, or when the mother is physically unable to push the baby out of the uterus. 


Procedure followed in C- Section
The procedure is most often done when the mother is in her senses and awake. However, epidural or spinal anaesthesia is provided to numb the body from chest to the feet, before the surgery is performed.


An incision is made on the lower abdomen, above the pubic area. A cut is made through the uterus and amniotic sac. The baby is pulled out from this opening. The umbilical cord is cut and cleaned. The fluids are cleaned from the baby s mouth and nose. The infant s breathing rate, heart rate and other vitals are kept under observation. 


Recovery from a C-section can take several weeks. The stitch wounds need to heal, including the recovery of pelvic muscles. It is important to walk around and do some very light exercises to boost the healing procedure. Doctors may prescribe painkillers in some cases and advice on effective post-operative care. Though the surgical procedure is quite safe now, with the use of highly advanced technology, there are risks that cannot be entirely ignored. 


Risks associated with C-section
Infections: Any surgery has some risk of infection associated to it. In the case of a C-section, an infection can occur around the site of incision that may rapidly spread in the uterine wall and other internal pelvic organs.
Haemorrhage: Blood refuses to clot and dangerously high quantity of blood is lost in the process. In such a case, it requires immediate transfusion and intensive care.
Injuries: The mother or the baby, both have a risk of getting injured during the surgery. Although these are rare, but the infant may suffer nicks and cuts while being manually pulled out from the womb. Other organs of the mother located near the pelvis may suffer minor or major wounds.


After the C-section, the mother and child will be retained in the hospital for 2 to 3 days, under intense care and constant monitoring. It is important to exercise and take the medications as advised by the physician to prevent any complication. 

C- Section - Understanding the Procedure and Risks

Cervical Cancer is most treatable when it is diagnosed and treated early. Problems found can usually be treated, depending on their severity and on the woman's age, past medical history, and other test results. Most women who get routine cervical cancer screening and follow up as told by their provider can find problems before cancer even develops. Prevention is always better than treatment.
Other HPV cancers are also more treatable when diagnosed and treated early. Although there is no routine screening test for these cancers, you should visit your doctor regularly for checkups.
Your doctor might recommend the HPV test if:
Your Pap test was abnormal, showing atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS)
You're age 30 or older
The HPV test is available only for women; no HPV test yet exists to detect the virus in men. However, men can be infected with HPV and pass the virus along to their sex partners.
What is a HPV Test?
The HPV test is a screening test for cervical cancer, but the test doesn't tell you whether you have cancer. Instead, the test detects the presence of HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer, in your system. Certain types of HPV - including types 16 and 18 - increase your cervical cancer risk.
Knowing whether you have a type of HPV that puts you at high risk of cervical cancer means that you and your doctor can better decide on the next steps in your health care. Those steps might include follow-up monitoring, further testing, or treatment of abnormal or precancerous cells.
Pap- HPV Test:
HPV spreads through sexual contact and is very common in young women, so, frequently, the test results will be positive. However, HPV infections often clear on their own within a year or two. Cervical changes that lead to cancer take several years - often 10 years or more - to develop. For these reasons, you might follow a course of watchful waiting instead of undergoing treatment for cervical changes resulting from an HPV infection.
A combination Pap-HPV test is performed in your doctor's office and takes only a few minutes. You'll lie on your back on an exam table with your knees bent, your doctor will gently insert an instrument called a speculum into your vagina. The speculum holds the walls of the vagina apart and a flat scraping device called a spatula or a soft brush is used to take samples of your cervical cells. This doesn't hurt, and you may not even feel the sample being taken.
Results of your HPV test are given as positive or negative 
Positive HPV test:A positive test result means that you have a type of high-risk HPV that's linked to cervical cancer. It doesn't mean that you have cervical cancer now, but it's a warning sign that cervical cancer could develop in the future. Your doctor will probably recommend a follow-up test in a year to see if the infection has cleared or to check for signs of cervical cancer.
Negative HPV test: A negative test result means that you don't have any of the types of HPV that cause cervical cancer.
Depending on your test results, your doctor may recommend one of the following as a next step:
Normal monitoring:If you're over age 30, your HPV test is negative and your Pap test normal, you'll follow the generally recommended schedule for repeating both tests in five years.
Colposcopy: In this follow-up procedure, your doctor uses a special magnifying lens (colposcope) to more closely examine your cervix.
Biopsy:In this procedure, sometimes done in conjunction with colposcopy, your doctor takes a sample of cervical cells (biopsy) to be examined more closely under a microscope.
Removal of abnormal cervical cells:To prevent abnormal cells from developing into cancerous cells, your doctor may suggest a procedure to remove the areas of tissue that contain the abnormal cells.
Seeing a specialist: If your Pap test or HPV test results are abnormal, your healthcare provider will probably refer you to a gynecologist for a colposcopic exam. If test results show that you might have cancer, you may be referred to a doctor who specializes in treating cancers of the female genital tract (gynecologic oncologist) for treatment.

Cervical Treatment Diagnosis, Tests and Treatment

Clotting of blood during or after a pregnancy is fairly common these days. While the reasons for these are numerous, the driving reason behind this being that the mother is weak after such an ordeal and it is, therefore, likely to affect her health. In pregnant women, blood clots tend to form in the deep veins present in the legs or near the pelvic area. The condition is known as Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). One of the main concerns for people suffering from Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) is the occurrence of Pulmonary Embolism (PE), which is a life threating diseases and is caused when a DVT breaks and travels to the blood vessels connected to the lungs.

The symptoms of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT)
According to the data published on  Centre for Disease Control and Prevention  website, from a recent survey conducted it has been estimated that almost 900,000 people suffer from Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) every year in the United States i.e. 2 in every 1000 people suffer from this life-threatening disease. 

This disease although life threatening can be taken into account by proper medical care at the early stages and therefore patients are advised to look out for any or all of the following symptoms-

The patient is experiencing pain, swelling or tenderness in one of their legs, although both might have been affected.
You have noticed a change in skin colour, and it has taken a reddish shade.
There is a warm sensation in and around the area of the clot.
The veins on your legs are appearing larger than they should.
Although all of these are proven symptoms for Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), it is common to have discomfort from swelling legs during pregnancy and does not always mean that the patient has symptoms of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). If you are having the slightest thought that it may be a case of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT), you should immediately contact your GP, midwife, or call your maternity unit.

Treatment for Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT)
When a patient is suffering from Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) and she is pregnant, anticoagulants, which is a medicine that prevents clotting of blood, is administered to them. While not all anticoagulants are safe to use during pregnancy, quite a few are. It is highly advisable that a doctor or medical practitioner is consulted before taking any further step.

How to prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT)
Like all diseases around the world, Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) is too a preventable one if the certain Do s and Don ts are kept in mind. Below is a list of certain things to keep in mind, in order to prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT)-

Being active and moving around regularly, will keep the blood circulation normal.
Beware of your family history and consult your doctor with the same.
Look out for symptoms and contact your doctor at once if you see one.
Every disease is preventable and curable. It is on us, what we choose to do with it, succumb to it, or stand up and fight it. Look out for the above-mentioned points and you will be at a safe distance from the clutches of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT).

Blood Clotting During & Post Pregnancy - How It Can Be Prevented?

Blood in urine, medically known as Hematuria is not usually a cause of concern, but it can translate into an adverse condition if left unevaluated. The kidneys and other structures in the urinary tracts such as urethra (tube connecting the bladder to the outer part of the body); bladder (that stores the urine) and ureters (tube joining the bladder to the kidney) are the sources of blood flow to the urine. Hematuria can be accompanied by symptoms such as discharge of tea-colored, brownish-red or pink colored urine due to the presence of red blood cells, traces of which can only be detected under the microscope.

Underlying causes behind this disorder might be

Urinary tract infection is where the bacteria enter the body through the urethra and begin to proliferate in the bladder.
Kidney infections (pyelonephritis) is when bacteria infiltrate into the kidneys from the bloodstream or travel up from the uterus to the kidneys.
A kidney or a bladder stone is marked by the minerals in the concentrated urine precipitating out and molding into crystals that deposit on the bladder or kidney walls.
Enlarged prostate is a condition in which the prostate gland, that is situated just below the bladder surrounding the upper part of the urethra, starts growing as males head towards their middle age.
Kidney disease such as glomerulonephritis causes swelling of the kidneys, thus disrupting the filtering system.
Bladder, kidney and prostate cancer are also possible causes.
Hereditary disorders such as sickle cell anemia (a hereditary disease of the red blood cells in the hemoglobin) can also pose as a cause behind this disorder.
Kidney injury as a result of heavy blows, accidents or injuries sustained while playing a spot can also contribute to this condition.
Medications such as penicillin or the anti-cancer drug  cyclophosphamide 
Strenuous physical exercises like intense workout or running may also result in Hematuria.
Treatments
There is no fixed cure for Hematuria; instead the doctor would work on treating the repressed conditions behind the symptoms, such as prescribing antibiotics to heal the urinary tract infection or a medicine to shrink and normalize the enlarged prostate or administer a shock wave therapy to destroy the kidney or bladder stones. 

Blood in Urine - 10 Reasons Behind It!

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