Lutheran Hospital Starts New Postpartum Rehab Program for Mothers of Cesarean or Traumatic Vaginal Births

3/14/2025

Matthew Gratton has been around babies for a long time. He and his wife have five children but it wasn’t until their fifth and final child was born that a new idea crept into his head. Gratton, operations manager for inpatient rehab at Lutheran Hospital, saw how difficult it was for his wife to transition from the hospital to home following a cesarean birth.

“As a trained therapist I was able to provide that help to her but I could see this could be an area where we could help our patients too,” said Gratton.

So for the last month, Gratton and team have implemented a new postpartum rehabilitation program for mothers of cesareans or traumatic vaginal births. They’re using occupational therapists to educate and help new moms take care of themselves once they’re discharged from the hospital.

“A lot of times people think they can move the same way after a surgery, when you really can’t. You activate certain muscles and it increases their pain, so we are focusing on how to teach someone to move while keeping their pain level low,” Gratton shared.

“We focus on getting in and out of bed with minimized pain and basic transfer training to help decrease pain as after a cesarean it can be pretty painful just getting up and down off of surfaces,” said Caitlynn Monce, occupational therapist at Lutheran Hospital.

After the baby is born therapists meet with patients to explain the program and ways they should consider movement post-surgery. Follow-up sessions are held to show the new moms supportive exercises, bracing for abdominal muscles, breathing exercises and incisional care that can be used at home.

“We also look at environmental factors, sometimes after a c-section doing stairs can be challenging and very painful, so speaking with the moms about their bedroom and bathroom layout at home could be modified to help,” said Monce.

The target is centralizing movement post-surgery when getting in and out of bed or getting to the restroom can be a challenge.

“It reduces the amount of stress that mom has when she gets home and she needs to focus more on baby’s well-being, so if we can get mom more self-sufficient, more cared for earlier that will help allow her to do what she wants to do, which is care for her new baby,” said Gratton.

Therapists involved in this program are working toward an enhanced recovery after delivery certification which they hope to complete by the end of the year.

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