Pico dressing

It’s very unlikely that if you buy one the midwives will fit it, midwives don’t usually do the wound care aspect either. Pico is a specialist dressing that has a criteria to meet before it is offered, you can discuss this with your consultant when you have an appointment to discuss the c section. Not all hospital trusts use them either just something to be aware of, and pico is just one brand, there are multiple different types of negative pressure dressings out there but again it really depends on criteria and if it’s even required x

If it’s not put on in hospital then you don’t have enough risk factors to benefit from the use of it. Using something that isn’t deemed necessary can sometimes be more detrimental to recovery. So no if the dressing hasn’t been deemed required by the surgeon the midwives won’t put it on (they’re also ridiculously expensive!)

I had one and it was honestly the best thing and gave me one less thing to be overly worried about - once it was working properly!

When they took it off after a week my incision was 95% healed and looked great.

At my trust it was quite a new device so not many of the midwives had training on it so didn’t realise it wasn’t working when they sent me home, it was until my husband read the information pamphlet that we realised it wasn’t working, but we went back to the hospital and they were able to change it and had no further issues.

There does seem to be mixed guidance on whether you can have the electrical part in the shower, so I just put a food bag over it just to be careful.

I had one and it was amazing - came off after a week and my scar was completely closed. The bandage also feels really sturdy and the box isn't too much of an effort to carry round. You get used to it pretty quickly.

Hey there, I had one and it was great.

The only cons is you can’t get it wet so showering is a bit of a challenge for the week you have it on (they told me to keep it on til the battery died) and it’s got a battery pack attached to it so make sure you bring clothes with pockets so the battery doesn’t fall onto the floor.

it was put on for me by my OB right after my C-section but I’m Canadian so it might be different if you’re in the uk. Hopes this helps! ☺️

Thanks all. I didn’t realise there are criteria to have one (I imagine this is a UK thing what with the NHS being severely underfunded). I’ll ask at my appointments and try to push for it. They are very expensive so if it’s not considered necessary for me I’ll try to pay for it myself if someone at the hospital is able and willing to help me with putting it on.

Thanks so much everyone

Unfortunately if it hasn’t been recommended by the surgeon no nurse or midwife will generally put it on as they are going against recommended practices and it means if anything happens to your wound that nurse or midwife will be in major hot water.

It’s not about the nhs being underfunded it’s about the research that shows if you don’t have risk factors for poor wound healing (such as raised bmi, history of wound breakdown etc) then a standard dressing is actually better for healing your wound. The pico dressing aims to encourage blood flow where otherwise it may not heal well so if you don’t have those risk factors it will have no benefit to healing in comparison to a standard dressing

I had a standard dressing with my first csection (only risk factors bmi) and a pick with my second as I then had 2 risk factors (bmi and skin damage due to sever stretch marks from twin pregnancy along the scar line) my wound healed just as well the first time as the second

Thanks for explaining. Do you have any links you could share to the research on this? I’d like to go into the conversation educated about the options. I thought the pico would be beneficial in all cases so I’m clearly not informed enough about it.

I don’t sorry as the information was provided to us when we had the rep came in to do our training. Very little of the publically available evidence is based around C-section wounds unfortunately. Many involved in studies are those who have multiple risk factors (poor skin condition, diabetic,multiple infections etc)

I agree with ceri Ann, if the nhs thought it would be beneficial to put in everyone they would. You can also have too much healing called hyper granulation which would require different treatment then to reduce that. Loads of people will tell you on here that it’s the best thing but you also don’t know why they had one applied. I would recommend reading NICE guidance on c sections there’s a section on wound care and also your local nhs trust policies. I’m a tissue viability nurse and see a lot of c section wounds, when I had mine I was terrified of how the wound would heal, I had a normal dressing, it healed amazingly and you can barely see my scar x

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng192/chapter/recommendations#recovery-after-caesarean-birth

I was able to shower with mine on- so weird the difference in guidance!

I will say that every trust is different - I had a friend give birth at the same hospital 6 months later and she requested a pico dressing (she had no risk factors for needing one) and she got given one.