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postpartum period
Sign in to saveAlso known as puerperium, postnatal, postnatal period, postpartum, Px
period beginning immediately after the birth of a child and extending for about six weeks
Research
102,531 papers- ACOG Committee Opinion No. 804: Physical Activity and Exercise During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period.Obstetrics and gynecology · 2021
- "The needs of women in the postpartum period: A scoping review.".Midwifery · 2024
- Towards a transdiagnostic approach to psychopathology in the postpartum period.Clinical psychology review · 2025
- The Integration of the Maternal Care with Sleep During the Postpartum Period.Sleep medicine clinics · 2023
- Maternal self-care in the early postpartum period: An integrative review.Midwifery · 2020
via PubMed
~18 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Mother with newborn baby
The postpartum (or postnatal) period begins after childbirth and is typically considered to last for six to eight weeks. There are three distinct phases of the postnatal period; the acute phase, lasting for six to twelve hours after birth; the subacute phase, lasting six weeks; and the delayed phase, lasting up to six months. During the delayed phase, some changes to the genitourinary system take much longer to resolve and may result in conditions such as urinary incontinence. The World Health Organization (WHO) describes the postnatal period as the most critical and yet the most neglected phase in the lives of mothers and babies. Most maternal and newborn deaths occur during this period.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “postpartum period” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.