Recently, Reddit user u/Professional_Song419 asked the good people of r/AskReddit, "What are some gruesome facts about pregnancy/childbirth/postpartum that not many people know?" Here are some of the most-upvoted replies:
Warning: not only is this list genuinely very gruesome, but there's also some mention of miscarriage, postpartum depression, suicide, and homocide. If you don't want to read about those right now, give this a miss!
1. "First-trimester miscarriages are way more common than most people think. One in four pregnancies terminate before three months."
2. "The placenta is the size of a plate and leaves an internal open wound that size that also needs to heal."
3. "Sometimes it takes *weeks* to be able to stand up/sit down/walk again without a ton of pain."
"No one f*cking told me that the first time. I was so focused on how the actual birth might be painful that I didn't realise that for over a month afterwards, I'd be in danger of burning to death if the house ever caught fire because I could barely walk."
4. "Your baby will come home with a huge gnarly scab attached to their belly button. My boyfriend wasn't prepared for this one. He thought that cutting the umbilical cord made it somehow detach from the baby right then and there. Nope. Big chunks of it stay behind, but will dry up over a number of days and eventually fall off."
5. "My wife's placenta wouldn't detach after the birth of our daughter, so the nurse just went up in there and got it out. I was oohing and aahing over our new baby girl and I look over to see someone damn near elbow-deep treating my wife like a sock puppet. It was so jarring."
"Mothers are so damn tough dude, it's unreal."
6. "I broke my tailbone pushing."
7. "I'm currently pregnant. I have pregnancy rhinitis, which is effectively like a cold caused by being pregnant. I also have morning sickness. Have you ever had uncontrollable sneezing while blowing chunks? Not bucket list-worthy, I promise."
8. "People talk about cracked nipples and painful latching while discussing breastfeeding but nobody talks about your uterus contracting during the first days of it."
9. "Nobody warned me that my insides would feel like they were falling out when I stood up the first few days after birth."
"This was going to be my comment. Imagine weights hanging on your intestines, lungs, stomach, etc as they try to remember where everything goes now that the baby is out."
10. "After birth, I sweat so much at night that I would wake up soaking wet from head to toe for the first week or two."
11. "I had the exact opposite. I would wake up absolutely frozen and I HATE being cold."
12. "Oh God, the smell! I didn't realize I would stink from all the hormones, I felt so gross!"
13. "They go wild pushing your stomach after birth to make sure everything is out. I read some books but no one prepared me for that. It was like having another baby."
14. "Postpartum incontinence is no laughing matter. No seriously, don’t laugh. It’ll make you pee."
15. "Passing clots the size of rocks. And bleeding for weeks after."
"When I was in the hospital for my c-section they put the little pan in my toilet to monitor everything that was... coming out, and told me to alert them if I had a clot bigger than a lemon. A GOD DAMN LEMON. I was a little horrified."
16. "The leading cause of death in pregnant and postpartum women in the US is homicide."
17. "Contractions don’t finish after labour. You have the after-birth pains to look forward to when your uterus returns to its usual pre-pregnancy size."
18. "A short time before you give birth (anywhere from one to a few days before), you will pass a 'mucus plug' which is basically a giant loogie that dislodges from your cervix and falls out of your vagina. Somehow it's even grosser than you would think."
19. "You will need to prep yourself for the second birth. What is that? It's when you have your first full bowel movement after."
20. "Can’t believe this hasn’t been mentioned — hemorrhoids. Often women don’t know they have them from labour due to the swelling, but add it to the list."
21. "Preeclampsia can last up to six weeks postpartum. You'd be amazed at how many emergency personnel don't know this. When asked if you have any medical history, please volunteer the information that you are postpartum, don't wait for them to specifically ask. *steps off of soap box*"
22. "Postpartum depression can be extremely dangerous and can last for months after their birth."
"After my twins were born my wife had a complete personality change. She became suicidal, and at times abusive to me. At one point she ran away from home. I found her two states away. Her brother had to bring her home. Things got really, really bad. The twins are five now and she's the person I married again. She doesn't like to talk about those times. The only thing she'll say is it was the darkest time in her entire life."
23. "When you get a C-section they may have to take the section of intestines covering your uterus out of your body. Like, it's just sitting in a bowl next to you, then once the baby's out and your uterus is stitched back up they just pack your guts back in and sew you up. Usually it's just pushed to the side, though."
24. "The umbilical cord is dense, tough, and sinewy. When you cut it you end up sawing a little with the scissors. I don't know what I expected but that was weird."
25. "There's a very high chance that you will poop during the birth. Pushing is pushing. If you don't poop, then it means you are in for a bigger poop afterwards."
26. "If you don't have adequate calcium intake, your body will pull it from your bones. Medieval European people assumed that women would lose a tooth for each pregnancy."
27. "If you have hyperemesis gravidarum, you can throw up so hard that you break blood vessels in your cervix. I thought I was losing my twins but it was just the effects of puking 30-70 times a day. Did that for five months while sitting on my couch hooked up to an IV."
Thanks to u/Professional_Song419 and r/AskReddit for having this discussion.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.