C-section recovery: new mums ‘left to get on with it’ alone

C-section rates in England have hit a record high, with nearly one in three babies now born by caesarean — and mothers say they’re being discharged from hospital with little more than a leaflet and a wish of good luck.

NHS figures released this week show that 32.4% of all births in 2023-24 were by caesarean section, up from 29.8% just five years ago. That’s roughly 220,000 operations annually. Yet behind the statistics sits a quieter crisis: women describing weeks of painful, isolated recovery with almost no professional support.

“I didn’t know what I was allowed to do”

Sarah Moran, 31, from Leeds, had an emergency caesarean last November. She was home within 48 hours. “Nobody told me I shouldn’t be climbing stairs repeatedly or lifting anything heavier than my baby,” she said. “I was just handed some paracetamol and sent home. I genuinely didn’t know what I was allowed to do.”

She’s not alone. A survey of 1,400 new mothers by the charity Birthrights found that 61% who had caesareans felt they received inadequate guidance on physical recovery. Nearly half said they hadn’t been clearly told about warning signs of infection or wound complications.

This isn’t a minor inconvenience. A caesarean is a major abdominal surgery. It involves cutting through seven layers of tissue. Recovery typically takes six to eight weeks, and complications — including wound infection, blood clots and chronic pain — affect a significant minority of women.

Postnatal care stretched to breaking point

Midwives and health visitors are under enormous pressure. Community midwifery teams in some NHS trusts are carrying caseloads that exceed recommended guidelines by 40%, according to the Royal College of Midwives. Home visits after birth, which were already being rationed before the pandemic, haven’t recovered to pre-2020 levels in many areas.

So women are falling through the gaps. Not because nobody cares, but because the system simply doesn’t have the capacity to follow up properly.

“We know postnatal care has been the Cinderella of maternity services for far too long,” said a spokesperson for NHS England. “We’re committed to improving support for all women after birth, including those recovering from caesarean sections, as part of our wider maternity safety programme.”

What needs to change

Campaigners are calling for a guaranteed minimum of three postnatal home visits for caesarean patients, specialist wound-care follow-up at 10 days, and clear written recovery plans handed to every mother before discharge. Some NHS trusts are already piloting structured caesarean aftercare pathways — but rollout is patchy and underfunded.

Still, there’s cautious movement. The government’s 10-year NHS plan, expected later this year, is anticipated to address postnatal care gaps specifically. Whether it will translate into real resources remains the question every exhausted new mother is quietly asking.

For now, too many women are getting home, closing the front door, and simply getting on with it.