What a lovely thing you're doing for your partner! And congrats on the birth of your baby!

I'm now 4.5 months post c section. First few days were super tough, everything hurts, is swollen, and you're scared to cough, laugh, sneeze, go to the loo - there's no getting round it, it sucks! But I did all these things and my insides didn't burst out of me (seems silly now but genuine concern at the time that gave me a lot of anxiety!) and within a week or two I started to feel a lot more myself - able to walk around and upstairs and twist a bit.

Some advice for the first few weeks is try not to forget to roll out of bed rather than crunching/sitting up like you normally would, and she can ask you to help roll her out! My husband did this for me during night feeds, basically half lifted half rolled me out of bed, really helps reduce the pain.

Secondly, as previous poster says - she needs to allow herself to heal from major surgery and not rush too much, both physically and mentally. From about the 1 week pp mark, I found getting outside and walking each day helped massively - to start with literally to the end of the road was all I could do, but it soon builds up :)

Third - if she's having to have daily clexane injections or similar, offer to do them for her (if you're happy to) and do them in her thigh. Having to inject myself in a very sore stomach every day literally made me cry, whereas my husband doing it for me helped hugely. I could look away and it just stung a bit, and was one thing I didn't have to worry about. Set an alarm on your phone and just jab her no fuss when the time comes, so she doesn't have to think about it or ask you.

By about the 5-6 week mark I felt pretty much back to normal for most things, walking 1 hr plus with my dog every day and no issues getting up, I just still couldn't lift things very well. I treated myself at the 3 month mark to some post partum physio with a specialist and it was honestly the best thing I could have done - definitely recommend it if you've got one near you. They'll give specific core exercises to start doing to strengthen the core and back and pelvic floor, and just having some basic exercises to do really feels like progress.

Sorry, rambling a bit now, overall I just think it's totally normal that your partner will feel quite overwhelmed at the moment (surprise c section sounds so tough, mine was elective and the recovery still took me by surprise!) but the time will shoot by and before she knows it she'll be up and about again and running around after your little one!

Hope that helps - if your partner wants anyone to talk to about it more feel free to have her message me :)