Postpartum

[Knnewsome]

I am a family nurse practitioner and often see women who are even a couple years postpartum that haven’t felt the same since. They feel fatigued, low libido, numbness and tingling in extremities, weight gain, hot flashes, just “off.” Hormone levels and thyroid are usually normal as well. Any insight into why so many women feel this way after having children?

[cmay]

Hi, I’m hoping someone has answers to share. That’s why I joined this forum. I’ve read period repair manual before having kids and just bought HRM in case this is early perimenopause. I’m 35, about 1 year postpartum and have had 3 cycles (ovulation not confirmed since I’m not currently temping) since I weaned from breastfeeding. I’ve been having night sweats (even while breastfeeding still), super heavy periods since they’ve returned, and recently started experiencing hot flashes. My worst hot flash was around the time of ovulation. My thyroid numbers are good as well. Anyway, I don’t know if this is early perimenopause or if I need to be patient while my body gets back to ovulating. Or if I need to do topical progesterone after ovulation to help balance my hormones. Prior to pregnancies I had low progesterone after ovulation. I’m not looking for specific medical advice, just for information (possibly a blog post?) about postpartum hormone repair, more so after weaning than the early baby blues time. And how the post weaning time is similar to perimenopause (if it is?) or how to tell which I am experiencing.