[CallMeProtart]

Not a tampon user, but my thoughts on reading this are that there are a number of uncomfortable or painful things you deal with afterwards, and this isn't the top one!
A tip someone shared with me that proved to be gold, was to sprinkle a little water into the pad before wearing, and then freeze it - kind of like an icepack when you put it on - for the first few days it was the ULTIMATE relief...

[JaPC]

Maternity pads are definitely not discreet sanitary items but as above, I doubt you will be giving them a second thought when baby arrives. Rather than risk ruining my underwear I also used disposable pants for the first couple of weeks.

[HeroOfCanton]

You may find you don't have to use the huge maternity pads for very long - I was only using them for 3 days before I could switch to regular pads. Then I only needed those for 2 more weeks and I used liners for another week just in case.

I know it's not the same as no pads or using tampons, but once you go from the huge surfboard pads to normal ones to liners, it feels like a huge relief!

[premmie_29weeks]

I only used the maternity pads in hospital (so maybe 5 days worth). After that a normal ultra thin daytime pad works just as well if you change every 2-3 hours. The bleeding stopped farily quickly for me, within 10 days I could use liners.