Local Resources, Home Care for Scar Tissue Release
How many of you gave birth via Cesarean? How many of you tore during your vaginal birth? You might have been told that healing from these events merely happens automatically, alongside the journey of recovery. If you’re unaware of the trauma, however, what exactly is there to heal?
Trauma, in the first place, is about being seen and being known. I would venture to guess that many of you were not informed to release scar tissue following a c-section or vaginal tear (or episiotomy), and there is, most likely, residual trauma, due to the effect of the incision or tear.
A Related Personal Story
The trauma I experienced from my first birth, a Cesarean, left me with some visible and invisible scarring. This birth happened in 2014, and a vaginal birth after Cesarean followed in 2017. I never released scar tissue between the births. I tore during the second birth. This detail may seem unrelated, but I’m going to tell a little story to illustrate how related these two events actually are.
I have spent the better part of this past year (2019 - four years after the c-section) releasing scar tissue in and around the incision site, even though on the outside, it appears as if the scar healed perfectly. But, on the inside the c-section scar tissue is gummy. There is nerve damage. I’ve gone to massage therapists to help me release the scar tissue, and received an essential-oil-scar-tissue-release blend made by my dear friend, Merry, of Zenith Sports Massage in Springfield, MO. As part of my home care, I apply the oil and do my own movement therapy.
Biofeedback
My exercise ball is an amazing biofeedback tool for scar-tissue-release recovery. As a core and pelvic floor focused movement teacher, I spend a lot of time on an exercise ball. It’s a great nervous-system-down-regulating device, and when I drape myself over the ball, I mother myself and let go completely. While in deep constructive rest in this position, I breathe into the ball and notice constricted areas alongside the incision and my belly. I like to listen to music while I do this. Oftentimes, I sing. I note tension in my pelvic floor and vocal cords, because they are connected. Indeed, everything is connected. The insights I make on that ball are smart, astute ones. And I go on healing my core, pelvic floor, scar tissue, and nervous system on the regular.
Feeling and Releasing Birth Trauma
One day, feeling a little scattered and unfocused mentally, I’ll drape myself face down on the ball, slip a little too far ahead too quickly, and, not being able to catch myself, I’ll crash onto the wood floor directly onto my c-section scar. Holding my right hand against the newly surging blood circulating around the incision, I will acutely feel the exact nerve that I’ve been trying to reanimate. That nerve covers a large expanse of my body. It is 2 inches on the inside of my right ASIS bone and it was cut into in order to create the incision. Immediately after crashing to the floor, I discover the path of this nerve travels all the way down to my right big toe. It also travels all the way up to a right molar. Cradling the nerve at the incision with my cupped hand, I will feel the pain surge through the c-section incision and inside my tooth and inside my big toe. I will feel the pain of a nerve that is not dead at all. It will reinforce my notion that the nerve is simply dormant, like grass is in the winter. With that pain, it will find its photosynthesis. With the crash enervating blood around the area, it will begin to regenerate its own oxygen. Although I wasn’t expecting the crash from my trusted tool moving out from under me, I am not surprised at all. With the resurgence of pain, I can feel the constriction caused around the surrounding tissues and skin in my legs. I suspect that is why I tore during my VBAC. It could have been due to unresolved scar tissue.
Reclaiming Ourselves Amongst the Modern Medical Paradigm
This journey and this pain will reinforce how important healing work is. It will remind me that women’s bodies are intelligent, in spite of the modern medical system. I am grateful to and for the modern medical system. It is because of modern medicine that I lived to birth my first child. If it were a previous time, I would have died in childbirth with my child inside my body. Instead, I live and she lives. But, oh, how intelligent our bodies are! Think about how intelligent babies are. So are women. Women are intelligent bodies because we have millions of years of genetic material that remind us of birthing.
I contend that our wisdom is so ancient and so primal that we can even reconnect with the pain of a numbed birth. My body recreated a birth trauma and injury in a way that I could feel it happening. Because my body was numb during the birth, the sensation of the surgery was not perceivable to my body. But my nervous system recorded the experience. And then one day, after much preparation, c-section release, and nerve awakening, I recreated the birth trauma to the nerve in an unrelated crash to the floor. Maybe it was so I could feel it in my body and release it.
It brought to mind the gaslighting I experienced after the birth. I told my doctors that I was still numb at the incision, months afterward. They successively told me it was nothing or that it was something I shouldn’t have to worry about. We women tell our doctors what we are going through and they dismiss us. They tell us that we are not really experiencing what we are feeling. It happens on a systematic level, and it happens to every single woman at some capacity during her pregnancy and postpartum experience.
We have our work cut out for us. I believe this work entails smashing the patriarchy, not just for ourselves but for everyone. Trauma is about being seen and being known.
Local Resources For Scar Tissue Release
Meanwhile, please look into the following resources for scar tissue release:
This link will bring you to the Functional Pelvis’s free education page of the website. Lindsey Greene Vestal is a pelvic floor occupational therapist and fellow RYC® teacher. If you click on the link, you will see a video and a free downloadable PDF. I highly recommend both!
For manual therapy scar tissue release in the Springfield area, please see my good friends and massage therapists:
For internal work and an amazing pelvic floor physical therapist in southwest Missouri, contact:
For incorporating movement therapy into your home care of scar tissue release, please stay tuned for an upcoming workshop I will be leading in Springfield, MO.
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Birth recovery goes far beyond the recovery room.
Healing is an ongoing journey.