What causes excessive sweating after childbirth?

Excessive sweating in postpartum women makes them feel distressed. There are many reasons for postpartum sweating, some are postpartum puerperal sweat, some are postpartum spontaneous sweating, and postpartum night sweats may be caused by excessive blood loss after delivery, leading to insufficient Yin Qi.

1. Postpartum puerperal sweat

This is common when a mother is lying in bed or doing a little exercise after childbirth. It is a self-regulating phenomenon of the new mother's body after childbirth, expelling excess water and impurities through sweating. In addition, eating too hot food (hot soup, hot porridge, etc.) can also cause new mothers to sweat more.

Postpartum puerperal sweat can be divided into physiological and pathological types. The physiological type is a normal condition and will improve within a week; the pathological types include night sweats and spontaneous sweats, and it takes a longer time to recover.

2. Postpartum spontaneous sweating

New mothers sweat a lot during the postpartum period and the sweat lasts for a long time, which is called postpartum spontaneous sweating. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that spontaneous sweating is mainly caused by physical weakness after childbirth, excessive blood loss during delivery, insufficient qi and blood, lung qi deficiency, and decreased skin resistance.

The main symptoms are heavy sweating that cannot be stopped on its own and is aggravated by exercise. Sometimes the person feels cold when the wind blows, has a pale face, is short of breath and is unwilling to talk. The person has a very small voice and is tired and weak. These symptoms are different from the sweating caused by heat stroke and fever. If left untreated for a long time, due to excessive sweating, the human yin fluid will be deficient, wind evil will enter the body, menstruation will stop, yang energy will leak out, and the yin fluid will not be solid, which will eventually turn into postpartum spasm, amenorrhea, paralysis, cold body, etc.

3. Postpartum night sweats

One type of postpartum night sweats is characterized by heavy sweating during sleep, which stops after waking up. This type of sweating is quite common. If it returns to normal within a week, it means that the body is sweating profusely in order to excrete excess water as quickly as possible by regulating the nerves and endocrine system to keep the sweat glands active. This is just physiological sweating. If the recovery time is long or even several months, then it may be pathological sweating.

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that pathological night sweats are caused by the loss of a large amount of blood after childbirth, which leads to insufficient Yin and excessive Yang. It may also be due to severe loss of Qi and blood, resulting in a decline in the body's protective function, which is often called Yin deficiency.