The 6-Week Postpartum Check-Up: What Happens and What to Ask

For most of the first weeks after birth, appointments are about the baby: feeding, weight, jaundice, sleep. The 6-week check is different. It is meant to be about you, and for many people it is the last planned appointment about their own recovery.

It is also short, and a lot of important things can go unmentioned unless you raise them. This guide covers when the check happens, what is usually asked and examined, what often gets missed, and a list of questions worth taking with you.

When is the check, and who does it?

In the UK, the NHS says you should have your postnatal check 6 to 8 weeks after your baby's birth, and that your GP surgery should offer it. NICE guidance says the GP should assess your physical and mental health and wellbeing at this point, and refer you on, for example to physiotherapy, if anything needs it.

In the US, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) moved away from a single six-week visit. It recommends contact with your obstetric care provider within the first 3 weeks after birth, then ongoing care as needed, ending with a comprehensive postpartum visit no later than 12 weeks after birth. ACOG describes postpartum care as an ongoing process rather than a single encounter.

If nobody has contacted you by around seven weeks, it is worth calling your GP surgery or provider to book it yourself.

What they will usually ask and check

According to the NHS, the check usually covers:

• How you are feeling, as part of a general conversation about your mental health and wellbeing.
• Whether you still have any vaginal discharge, and whether you have had a period since the birth.
• An examination of your stitches, if you had an episiotomy or a caesarean, to see if they have healed.
• Contraception.
• Your blood pressure, if you had problems during pregnancy or immediately after the birth.
• Your weight, if your BMI is 30 or more.
• Cervical screening: if you were due for a smear test while pregnant, it should be rescheduled for 12 weeks after the birth.

NICE also lists topics the GP should discuss, including your emotional and mental health, sex, contraception, pain and healing, breast comfort and safeguarding, including domestic abuse. You should also be given the chance to talk about your experience of the birth.

ACOG's list for the US comprehensive visit is similar: mood and emotional wellbeing, infant care and feeding, sexuality, contraception and birth spacing, sleep and fatigue, physical recovery from birth, chronic disease management and general health maintenance.

What often gets missed

The guidance describes a thorough appointment. The reality is often quicker. In a 2025 survey of 671 UK GPs, 78% said they were given 15 minutes or less for the maternal postnatal check, and around half said they needed more time than they had.

The same survey shows which topics make it into those minutes. Contraception was always discussed by 96% of GPs and mental health by 82%. Pelvic floor exercises were always discussed by only 36%, and 17% said they rarely or never raised them. More than a third of the GPs were not aware of the national recommendations for what the check should include.

None of this is a reason to skip the appointment. It is a reason to go in knowing what you want to ask, because the things that most affect the months ahead, like leaking, pain during sex or a tummy that does not feel right, are exactly the ones that tend to be left for you to raise.

Questions worth bringing

Write these down, or keep them on your phone, and pick the ones that apply to you:

• Pelvic floor: "I sometimes leak when I cough or sneeze", or "I feel heaviness or dragging down below." Ask whether you should be referred to a pelvic health physiotherapist.
• Tummy gap: "Can you check whether my stomach muscles have separated?"
• Bleeding: tell them if you are still bleeding, if it has become heavier again, or if it smells unusual.
• Mood: say honestly how you have been, including anxiety, low mood, intrusive thoughts or trouble sleeping even when the baby sleeps.
• Pain: in your stitches or scar, your back, your pelvis, or during sex.
• Exercise: which activities are appropriate now, and what you should build up to first.
• Contraception: which options work with breastfeeding, if you are breastfeeding.
• The birth itself: anything about what happened that you want explained.

If you had a birth injury or a difficult delivery

NICE guidance on pelvic floor dysfunction says a 3-month programme of supervised pelvic floor muscle training should be considered after birth for women with certain risk factors, including an assisted vaginal birth with forceps or ventouse, a birth where the baby was lying face up, or an injury to the anal sphincter. If any of these applied to you and nobody has mentioned pelvic floor physiotherapy, the 6-week check is a good time to ask.

After a caesarean

The NHS says you may be offered an examination to see if your scar has healed. It is also worth asking about the practical things that tend to come up around six weeks: lifting, driving and when harder exercise is appropriate. Recovery from a caesarean runs on a later timeline than recovery after a vaginal birth, which our C-section recovery timeline covers week by week.

What being "signed off" does and does not mean

Many people come away from the check thinking they have been cleared to go back to everything. Usually it means nothing worrying was found, not that your body is ready for running, heavy lifting or high-impact classes. Returning to exercise works best as a gradual build-up, starting with pelvic floor and deep core work, then strength, then impact.

If you want a sense of what that build-up looks like, our postpartum workout plan and diastasis recti exercise guides go through it step by step.

What to take with you

• Your written list of questions.
• Any notes on your mood, sleep, bleeding or symptoms over the past weeks.
• Your baby, if the surgery has booked the baby's check at the same time. Ask when you book.
• A list of any medicines or supplements you are taking.

Notes help more than people expect. "I've felt low most days for two weeks" is much easier to act on than "I'm a bit tired", and it is hard to remember how the last six weeks really went when you are sleep-deprived in a GP's office. This is part of why MatraBloom asks about mood and energy each morning and plots them across the weeks, so the pattern is there to show when you need it.

Frequently asked questions

Walk in with six weeks of notes

MatraBloom keeps a daily record of your mood and energy, plotted across the weeks, so at your check you can show how things have actually been instead of trying to remember.

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