Urinary retention is a post birth complication that you rarely hear about but is quite common (about 10%) (1). If not picked up, it can have devastating and sometimes permanent effects on your bladder. What are the signs and treatments?

What is post partum urinary retention?

Post partum urinary retention (PPUR) is defined as the inability to urinate within 6 hours of giving birth. More clinically it is defined as more than 150 ml of urine being left behind in the bladder after urinating. If your bladder does not expel the urine your bladder will stretch. If it stretches too much and left untreated this can lead to sometimes irreversible bladder muscle and nerve damage, which could mean permanent catheter use to urinate. It can resolve spontaneously but can persist for months. Immediate diagnosis and management is vital.

This blog shows that running around after our babies and keeping the house in some resemblance of order can clock up 10 000 steps per day.

My husband congratulated me today. Our baby started her first day of school this week. It is an end of an era. We have successfully reared our child from womb to school. The major goals achieved in this time were: sleeping through the night, learning to walk, run and skip, talk with good manners, use the toilet, make simple meals and learn to recognise letters and numbers.