Compression stockings for caesarean section

Planned cesarean section requires careful preparation. One of the items that is strongly recommended to observe is the purchase of compression stockings. This item is listed in the list of necessary items for hospitalization, but the need for such underwear is not explained, and therefore it is quite difficult for a woman to understand what to buy medical stockings, how to choose them and how to use them later. In this article we will try to answer these questions as fully as possible.

Compression medical underwear is called not just like that, for the sake of a beautiful word. Compression is compression. Accordingly, hospital underwear provides this very compression exactly where it is needed. Compression-effect stockings are recommended for people with circulatory problems, for those who are on duty for a long time, are under pressure.

How does the laundry, understand quite simple. All of us at least once wore tight socks or tights, and therefore the sensations are quite familiar. When exerting pressure on the legs outside, the lumen of the veins becomes smaller, the blood begins to circulate faster. Ankle pressure is always stronger than that of the thigh, so the blood flow is distributed so that more blood reaches the heart than the lower extremities, the pressure rises, and the probability of a dangerous blood clot in the veins of the legs decreases.

During pregnancy, such underwear helps a woman not to experience big problems with the feeling of “heavy legs”; this is the prevention of varicose disease. During childbirth, they carefully preserve the integrity of the vascular grid in the overload mode.

Women may wonder why such underwear is necessary when carrying out a labor-giving operation, since it will not be necessary to exactly give birth to a parturient woman - the child will be removed from incisions in the uterus and stomach without efforts from the mother. Indeed, cesarean section - abdominal surgery. And this fact is decisive.

With the penetration of doctors into the abdominal cavity of the woman in labor, the load on all vessels increases tenfold, which ultimately may well provoke the formation of blood clots. Blood clots can set off on a fascinating, but short journey through the bloodstream, which is very likely to lead to a dangerous complication, thromboembolism, in which the lumen of the blood vessel is blocked by one of the traveling clots. Some forms of thromboembolism are deadly.

The likelihood of such an unattractive version of the event increases and anesthesia. Drugs that are used for it, adversely affect vascular tone, as a result of this exposure, the vessels may be damaged. With the restoration of their integrity, the stage of thrombosis will, alas, be inevitable.

The best prevention is the distribution of pressure in the vessels so that the probability of their injury is minimal. This and can achieve hospital stockings.

Some obstetric hospitals practice bandaging the legs with elastic medical bandages.This is a cheaper way to achieve results, but even an experienced medic can be mistaken with the degree of compression and pressure of the bandages on the vessels when bandaging. In addition, the bandage can be untied and unwind at the most inopportune moment. Stockings in this regard are much more comfortable, safer and simpler.

Today, the Ministry of Health recommends their taking for a planned operation to all women in labor, but especially persistently to those who have direct indications for wearing such underwear:

• leg swelling;
• preeclampsia;
• the presence of a vascular grid ("stars", "spider") on the legs;
• abnormal weight gain;
• convulsive syndrome (legs);
• bleeding disorders according to tests, the tendency to thrombosis.

After surgery, a woman usually spends about 10-12 hours in a horizontal position, which in itself disrupts blood circulation and becomes a risk factor. After the operation, the drugs used for anesthesia and their metabolites continue to be removed from the woman's mother for several days, and therefore the risk of vascular disorders remains. Stockings, put on before the operation, will help to avoid negative consequences in the postpartum period.

When choosing stockings for surgery, you should not pay special attention to the aesthetic appearance of products, design and jewelry. You choose not stockings for a party, and underwear to maintain your own health. Therefore, you need to focus on the following points.

There are four degrees. As the number of compression increases, the pressure on the vessels will be stronger. If a woman does not have serious vascular diseases, then for cesarean section, stockings of the first or second degree of compression are quite suitable.

The third and fourth are designed to treat serious vascular diseases. If in doubt, it is better to consult a specialist. Phlebologists - doctors who specialize in diseases of the blood vessels - know the best about compression of hospital linen.

When selecting products, forgery and falsification are not allowed. They can not provide not only the proper degree of compression, but also do not show such an effect at all. It is best to buy medical stockings, which are produced by factories that have been cooperating with healthcare institutions for many years.

Here are a few items of time-tested stockings - Relaxsan, Mediven medi, Ergoforma, Sigvaris, Venoteks.

Since stockings can be worn during pregnancy, and also have some time after the operation, care should be taken to ensure that the materials are natural, wear-resistant, so that the legs "breathe" in them. The above manufacturers specialize in products from such materials.

Even if all the conditions of the right choice are met, and there is a slip with the size, there will be no use for the products. Therefore, it is important to correctly calculate your own size. On the packages of medical therapeutic underwear, manufacturers usually indicate a table of sizes corresponding to a particular size of linen of a specific brand. To find your own, you need to make simple measurements with a measuring tape: measure the volume of the tibia in the ankle, take a measure from the tibia at its widest point, fix the girth of the hip 25 centimeters above the patella, and also find out the length of the legs from the foot to the groin.

These four parameters will help you find your size in the table of sizes and not lose the choice.

It is best to choose and buy two pairs of medical stockings. While one is worn, the other can be washed and dried. If such underwear was worn during pregnancy to support the legs and blood vessels, then before the operation it is better to take along a new set of stockings - the conditions of stay in the operating room require certain sterility and cleanliness. If the second pair is not, you need to wash and thoroughly dry the stockings.

It is important to know that It is best to wear medical knitwear in the morning without getting out of bed. If such an opportunity exists, it is better to do this. But in practice, in maternity hospitals, preparation for surgery usually involves a set of morning procedures, before which stockings are better not to wear stockings because of the risk of getting them dirty. This complex includes cleansing enema, pubic shaving and showering. Only after that stockings put on in the prone position and sent to the operating room.

If the woman’s blood vessels to a cesarean section were healthy and did not cause problems, many extra pounds were not collected, then stockings can be removed earlier. Women with solid weight gain, problematic veins in their legs are not in a hurry.

Medical jersey in the first days after surgical delivery should be worn constantly, without removing. In stockings and you can sleep. Only after one week is recommended to start wearing medical underwear only during the daytime, taking off before bedtime.

Doctors believe that in the absence of diseases of the blood and blood vessels, a woman would be enough to wear stockings for two weeks after operative delivery. During this time, painkillers will be completely removed, and the blood lost during the operation will be replenished.

Women who need stockings for a longer time due to the presence of diseases, a tendency to thrombosis, will receive individual recommendations when they leave the hospital home.

About the intricacies of the choice of medical linen can be found in the following video.