Maren Morris Details 'Brutal' C-Section Recovery: 'I Wish More People Talked About It'
Maren Morris gave birth to her first child, son Hayes, in March, undergoing an emergency C-section [...]
Maren Morris gave birth to her first child, son Hayes, in March, undergoing an emergency C-section after laboring for 30 hours. In a new video for Little Spoon's Is This Normal Series, the singer opened up about the experience and her recovery, sharing that she felt "isolated" during the "brutal" postpartum period after the procedure.
"I labored for 30 hours," Morris shared. "I wanted to do it naturally, but I stopped having contractions, and it was just time to call it, and get him out safely. I'm glad that we did it, but definitely not planning for a C-section, I didn't read up on any of that ahead of time, because I didn't expect to get one. So I just wish I had done a better job at preparing myself for the shock of a C-section, because the postpartum of a C-section is so brutal."
The Texas native explained that because "you can't use any of your abdominal muscles" after the procedure, she "had to army crawl to get out of bed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night." "My husband would have to lift me out of bed," she recalled. "And you're also wanting to hold your baby and breastfeed and pump and all this other s—, so that was crazy."
Morris added that she wished the topic was more frequently discussed because she, "like a lot of mothers," felt "really isolated, really lonely, right after because it was this unexpected major surgery I ended up getting." "So that was probably the craziest thing," she said. "But now that I'm four months postpartum, I feel a lot better. I've been cleared by my doctor to work out again. It's nice to engage yourself and feel like you're getting back into your body a little bit because it's been borrowed for a year. You will come back; you will snap back. It takes time. It takes nine months to grow a baby. You need at least that to get back to yourself, so don't rush it."
The 30-year-old shared her video with Little Spoon to support the Black Women's Health Imperative, which is the first nonprofit organization created by Black women to help protect and advance the health and wellness of Black women and girls. Morris made additional philanthropic efforts this month when she donated $70,000 to the band program at East Nashville Magnet High School and an additional $10,000 to East Nashville bar The Fox.