Pregnancy

This post is split into two sections. The first part is my experience of pregnancy and the second part are some physiological changes that happen to the body during pregnancy.

My Pregnancy

I’ve not written anything for a long time, mainly because I didn’t feel like I had anything interesting to say. I’ve been pregnant, having a baby and then looking after my baby, and I am aware a huge percentage of the population do the same. Having said this, considering the number of people that have children and how normal this is, I was pretty ill-educated and naive about everything; pregnancy, childbirth, breast-feeding and the fourth trimester. So almost a year later (it really does go fast) I thought I would start writing some thoughts on pregnancy and who knows maybe I’ll move onto childbirth, breast-feeding and being a mother! I understand this won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but it might interest a small few.

I feel like I got away lightly with my pregnancy, I didn’t suffer from any back pain, pelvic girdle pain or severe morning sickness. I did a few things to make my 10 month baby growing journey easier such as supplements, chiropractic treatment, acupuncture and physio exercises but I think a lot of it is down to luck and will vary from person to person and pregnancy to pregnancy. Don’t panic if you end up not being able to do all things you thought you could/should do, being pregnant counts for a teeny tiny amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Try and enjoy it for what it is – and that is pretty freakin cool that you are growing a human.

I found the first three months the hardest and I know I got off lightly. It felt like I had a hangover every day and the only thing that made me feel better was eating hangover food, and this cured the sickness for only a few moments. I felt exhausted as well and while I hate sleeping in the day I succumbed to a few daylight naps. Things definitely picked up in the second and third trimester and the sickness disappeared and my energy levels came back.

Advice on “extreme sports” (climbing, surfing, mountain biking etc) is limited and so I just decided to try and listen to my body and do what felt right for me. This is actually easier said than done, as your body suddenly isn’t one you recognise anymore. But for example, after balling my eyes out with guilt about falling off (at 2months pregnant) when mountain biking the Mini Marin I knew it was time to stop biking. A similar thing happened with bouldering, I just couldn’t bring myself to climb up the bouldering wall in case I fell off.

I think a common mistake is to compare yourself to what other pregnant women are doing/have done. Every pregnancy is different, we are all individual and have a unique experience of what our bodies will and won’t allow us to do during this time. Since I wasn’t experiencing any pain I turned my attention to route climbing, I got a full-body harness at 4 months and top-roped at the wall. Since I had done limited routes leading up to this point it was actually quite an enjoyable process. Even though I was getting more and more pregnant over the coming months I was seeing a big improvement in my fitness. My highlight was top roping a 7b at 6 months. However, I knew at some point the scales would tip, and they did around 8ish months when I started feeling really heavy and it became harder to lift my legs and impossible to bend my arms! I normally weigh roughly 59 – 61 kg and my last weigh a few weeks before my due date was 71kg.

I also did a lot of walking, I am lucky enough to live very close to lots of mountains so it was easy to get up and out and just walk as little or as much as my body wanted. I did suffer quite alot with swollen feet/ankles/legs during the third trimester, we nicknamed them the polar bear feet. They were so big and swollen and I could feel the fluid sloshing around when I moved them.

Looking back I don’t felt like I gave my body enough appreciation for what it was actually doing. I mean it was building and growing a human the most incredible and mind-blowing thing ever. I think it is especially difficult in the early stages when you are the most tired but have nothing to show for it.

I felt completely blind going into both pregnancy and childbirth. I didn’t know what actually happened to the body, how it worked and the changes that happened until I did my own research and reading and I now have whole new respect and appreciation for my body.

I did ALOT of googling whilst I was pregnant. A friend of mine was pregnant at a similar time and we would joke about the stupidest or weirdest thing we had googled that day. This leads on to the second half of the blog post that explains some of the physiological things that happen to the body during pregnancy.

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What happens to the body when you grow a baby

Below is a very brief overview of some of the things that happen to your body when pregnant. All information has been taken from here, please do your own research.

• Your hormones go crazy, in fact whilst pregnant you will produce more oestrogen during one pregnancy than throughout your entire life when not pregnant. Not only does oestrogen increase but progesterone levels are also very high, this enables internal structures to increase in size, including the uterus (the uterus will stretch from 2.5 to 20 cm in-depth throughout pregnancy). Progesterone also affects the blood vessels causing them to relax slightly and causes the loosening of the joints.

• The amount of air moved in and out of the lungs increases by nearly 50% due to each breath containing a larger volume of air and the rate of breathing (breaths per minute) increases slightly. A lot of women will get short of breath and this is because the baby begins to take up the lung space as it grows.

• The muscles in the walls of the intestines relax slightly, so the food being squeezed along slows down. This increases the time available for digestion, and it maximises the absorption of nutrients from the diet. The same applies here as with the lungs, the baby takes up your stomach space as it grows which can cause indigestion, heartburn and also mean you can’t eat as much in one go.

I was fascinated by this video and still am, it gives a quick look at what actually happens to the organs inside your body as the baby grows (along with some very intense music!)

A quick overview of each trimester

1st Trimester (1-12 weeks)

• Amount of litres per minute pumped out by the heart = 5L (compared with 2.5L for non-pregnant women)

• Nausea and morning sickness. This actually can last all day rather than it’s suggested “morning” name. I can’t seem to find much information on why we get morning sickness – seems like a pointless and annoying symptom.

2nd Trimester (13-26 weeks)

• The heart at rest is working 40% harder than in your non-pregnant state.

• Amount of litres per minute pumped out by the heart = 6L (compared with 2.5L for non-pregnant women)

• Many women experience their hair feeling thicker at around 15 weeks of pregnancy. This is not because each hair strand itself becomes thicker, but because the hair stays longer in the growing phase of its cycle, which means that less hair falls out than usual (another side effect of oestrogen). Keep your eyes open for random hair growth on any body part…!

• By the 16th week, you will begin to produce colostrum.

• Some women produce a brownish pigmentation of the skin over the face and forehead, known as the ‘mask of pregnancy’ (or chloasma).

• The linea nigra may begin to show, this is a dark line between your public bone and belly button and may even extend up towards your sternum. It is a hormone-induced excess production of brown material (pigment) in the skin cells in this area. After delivery, the line begins to fade, though it may never completely disappear. (Mine faded but I still I have a faint line from my pubic bone to just above my belly button but I think most peoples just disappear.)

3rd Trimester (27 weeks onwards)

• Blood volume (the total volume of blood in the circulation, measured in litres) increases gradually by 30-50 % by full-term you have about 1.5 litres more blood than before the pregnancy

• Amount of litres per minute pumped out by the heart = 7L (compared with 2.5L for non-pregnant women)

• The kidneys extract waste from the blood and turn it into urine. They work extra hard to filter your own waste products and the babies from the blood and get rid of them into your urine. Therefore, there is also an increase in the amount of urine produced during pregnancy. The growing baby also presses against the bladder.

• In late pregnancy, you may need to get up even more often during the night to wee, because fluid retained in the legs and feet during the day (oedema) is absorbed into the blood circulation when lying down in bed. The kidneys extract the excess fluid and turn it into urine, so the bladder fills more quickly at night.