You may notice a change in your own body only after the daily work of caring for your baby has become a little more familiar. A search that starts from “it feels different from before, but it is hard to explain where the difference is, or how it is different” often meets the words vaginal laser and vaginal surgery first.
You do not need to settle on a method before the visit. You can begin by saying which discomfort you want to lessen now, and in which situations you feel it most.
How can “it feels looser” be explained?
Please say separately whether this is a change felt during sexual intercourse, a feeling of downward pressure in daily life, or the discomfort of urine leaking. These can overlap with one another, but they are not all explained by the width of the vagina alone.
- If sensation during sexual intercourse has changed: Please distinguish feeling different from before from stinging or pain caused by friction. After childbirth, dryness related to recovery, or to hormonal changes during breastfeeding, can also have an effect.
- If walking or standing brings a heavy feeling: Please also say whether something can be felt at the vaginal opening, or whether something bulges outward. It is possible to assess for pelvic organ prolapse, in which weakened support allows the organs inside the pelvis to descend toward the vagina.
- If urine leaks when you cough or move: Please say when the leaking happens, and whether you still feel incompletely emptied after urination. Problems with urination need their own evaluation, and narrowing the vagina should not be assumed to resolve them.
What matters more than a change another person feels is how much you are bothered, and at which moments. Even if sexual life has changed, that does not mean every change has to be solved by a procedure.
What is checked together at a postpartum consultation?
The time that has passed since childbirth, the course of recovery, and the condition of the vaginal tissue and the pelvic floor are reviewed together. The pelvic floor is the muscles and tissues that support the bladder, the uterus, the bowel, and other organs from below. Pregnancy and childbirth can affect this supporting structure.
Please share the date you gave birth, how the baby was delivered, whether the perineum tore or was sutured, and whether you are breastfeeding now. It also helps to say whether the discomfort was present from right after childbirth, or got better and then returned. If an examination is needed, first have its purpose and how it will proceed explained, and say if there is pain or if you find it burdensome.
The pace of recovery differs from person to person. The timing of treatment is not set only because several months have passed, and the need for vaginal surgery is not judged from the number of births alone. If the discomfort goes on, consider a consultation rather than making yourself wait through a fixed period.
How do non-surgical care, vaginal laser, and vaginal surgery differ?
Exercise and rehabilitation, and care aimed at symptoms, deal with function and discomfort. Laser delivers energy to tissue. Surgery is an approach that incises tissue, adjusts it, and sutures it. Do not treat these as methods that share one purpose and one effect, and do not think of them as a line in which the next method follows if the previous one does not help.
Pelvic floor exercise, rehabilitation, and care matched to the symptoms
Depending on the examination, pelvic floor exercise or physical therapy can be considered. What matters in exercise is learning a method that fits your own condition. If pain appears or discomfort increases while you are following it, stop and consult. If dryness during breastfeeding is the main problem, ways to reduce the symptoms, such as a lubricant, can be discussed. If pelvic organ prolapse is confirmed, other options, such as a support device, are considered as well. This does not mean that LILEAP performs every treatment introduced in this article.
Energy-based procedures such as vaginal laser
This approach delivers energy to the vaginal wall. It is not the same as pelvic floor exercise, and it is not surgery to repair a damaged supporting structure. The evidence is not sufficient to guarantee that a postpartum sense of looseness will be resolved for certain, or that sexual sensation will be increased. Laser, radiofrequency, and ultrasound are different technologies, and their names should not be used interchangeably.
Even without an incision, burns, scarring, pain during sexual intercourse, or pain that persists can occur. In the consultation, confirm separately the purpose of use permitted in Korea and the evidence for applying that use to your symptoms. LILEAP's Vaginal laser and vaginal tightening guide also sets out the limits of the evidence and the risks together.
Surgical approaches such as vaginal surgery
Surgery that adjusts tissue and sutures it, such as vaginoplasty, and surgery that repairs the supporting structures in pelvic organ prolapse, need to be distinguished by purpose from the beginning. A feeling of looseness alone cannot be a reason to recommend vaginal surgery for a cosmetic purpose. First confirm which structural problem the treatment would address, and whether the course can be observed without surgery.
Genital surgery for a cosmetic purpose does not have enough research to support its effectiveness and safety adequately, and it does not guarantee an improvement in sexual satisfaction. You should also be given an explanation of the possibility of bleeding, infection, scarring, changes in sensation, pain during sexual intercourse, and additional surgery. Include in the decision how restrictions on activity during recovery could affect childcare and daily life.
What is worth asking before the consultation ends?
Ask, in terms of your own life, about the goal of treatment, the option of waiting to see, and the risks and the recovery plan. You can take the next sentences as they stand, as a place to start.
- “Is the discomfort I feel related to the vaginal tissue, pelvic floor function, or dryness?”
- “Is there a problem that should be treated now? May the course be observed, or may I start with exercise and rehabilitation?”
- “What change can be expected from this method, and which symptoms are hard to resolve?”
- “If pain or another side effect appears, how do I make contact and receive care?”
- “From when can I hold the baby, exercise, and have sexual intercourse? Would a plan for another pregnancy also affect the decision?”