Pregnancy and Stretch Marks
Pregnancy is no doubt a wonder and exciting period of your every woman’s life. It is the time when you’re highly anticipating the coming of your little one. It is also when you giddily shop for cute baby clothes and nursery furnishings. For most women, however, there is still something that continues to bother them at the back of their minds. Amidst their excitement during pregnancy, they can’t help but worry about putting on too much weight and having stretch marks.
Pregnancy is a time of a woman’s life that is filled mostly with joy but a little trepidation. If it is your first then there is the wonderment of having something growing inside you and later on, giving you gentle kicks.
Then there is the excitement of buying baby clothes and doing up the nursery in pink or blue and thinking of names.
Along with the joy comes a certain amount of worry. “Am I eating the right food?” “When the next scan due is and what will the results be?”
What doesn’t cross a lot of would-be-mothers is the affect that pregnancy will have on their own body. The wonder if they have put too much weight on, or if they’ll be able to shed any excess weight. Then there is the blight of Stretch Marks, or to use its technical name striae. As you may have read on other articles on this sight, they are formed as the middle layer of the skin, or dermis, tears when it is stretched beyond its normal elastic limits. Just as a rubber band might break.
Some thinking says that the hormonal imbalance that occurs during pregnancy and puberty is the cause of stretch marks alone. The jury is out on this one!
If you have you are pregnant and you have thought about the possibility of getting stretch marks then it could well be because your Mom or sister has suffered from them. It is thought that your susceptibility to get them is genetic so our advice is to start using a stretch mark cream as soon as possible.
If you are not using a stretch mark cream before you hit the 6 month mark (third trimester) then it could be too late. The skin really starts to stretch rapidly as the babys growth rate accelerates at this stage.
What can you do?
Keep hydrated. Your skin stars to shrivel if you don’t drink enough. You can’t see what’s going on down at the dermis layer of your skin. If you’re not drinking enough then it is more likely to dry out and tear.
Watch what you eat. Eat sensibly. You don’t want to be any bigger than you need to be as you’re even more likely to get stretch marks. Eat foods that are rich in Vitamins C and E as these keep skin healthy. An citrus fruit is ideal.
Use a stretch mark cream reviewed on this site to keep your skin supple, healthy, and unlikely to tear.
Finally, if you have had baby and you didn’t use a stretch mark cream don’t worry. Consider a cream like Trilastin reviewed on this site that works to repair the elastin and collagen so it looks like it used to.
Good Luck. It’s all worth it.
