13 Changes That Motherhood Brings In Your Body
You must have thought that that having kids was going to make you heavier than usual, right? Here’s the good news. Recent studies have revealed that having a baby itself won’t make you heavier. We cannot deny that motherhood makes you heavier, but as it turns out not having children can, in fact, make you even heavier. It is the age as opposed to pregnancy that makes your body heavier.
Scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine have discovered that those women who did not have children put on six to 13 pounds over a period of five years while those who had one child had gained just about ten to 19 pounds. In a similar study undertaken by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, researchers found that a typical adult woman put on eight to ten pounds over a span of 10 years. However, only three out of those pounds can allude to pregnancy.
Pregnancy does change your body weight. How about your hair, skin, and other aspects of the body? Read on for more:
Hair
Didn’t you notice the hair loss as you nursed your baby? Well, women do think that their hair changes permanently. It may become wavier, coarser, and thinner during pregnancy or even after delivery. While there is no scientific explanation for the change in hair texture or density, hormones could be one thing to blame. Given the fact that you impart most of the nutrients to your baby is one factor to consider as well http://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancy-health/hair-loss-during-pregnancy/.
Skin
Your stretch marks may fade out, but they are not likely to disappear altogether. Stretch marks are like tiny bands of scar tissue that occur because your skin has stretched too much and too fast. You might also have darker skin areas or pigmentation. Linea Negra, which is a vertical line on the abdomen, is a common feature. A few women might have dark or pigmented cheeks and upper lip, the condition being called chloasma or the ‘mask of pregnancy’. Both Linea Negra and chloasma can fade away drastically after delivery. In a few women, however, these features might persist as faint trace, expect darker or larger moles than when pregnant. If the moles have changed too much, it might be a time you seek your dermatologist’s advice.
Breasts
Lactation and bulk of pregnancy make the breast skin stretch. So your breasts may never return to their previous tightness with the sagging only increasing. What happens is that the glandular tissue in the breast grows during pregnancy, and it proliferates to enable breastfeeding. When the glands shrink they render the breasts floppier and softer. Cancer of the breasts has little chance to attack you with breastfeeding. Breast cancer may occur post childbirth, but if you plan early motherhood and choose to breastfeed, you can lower its risk.
Waist
As mothers, women usually have bigger hips than women without children. Apparently, the fat that our body uses to make breast milk is stored in the abdomen. The remaining fat tends to stay in the abdomen even after we stop breastfeeding. Despite doing all the sit-ups, your stomach muscles may not come back to normalcy fully. It’s because your stomach muscles have stretched beyond their ability to come back to the original shape.
Hips
Your hips could get bigger because hips are the first site to store fats for lactation. If you don’t return to your original weight, they are likely to remain padded that way. Your pelvic area widens but does not hold water as is the belief. In fact, your pelvic bones have a bit of soft tissue that stretches slightly.
Legs
Your varicose veins shrink back only after the first pregnancy. They, however, tend to remain after subsequent pregnancies. The tiny spider veins also stay on, but you can seek your dermatologists’ help if need be.
Feet
You could be surprised that the longer, flatter, and wider feet you had during pregnancy happen to stay on permanently. You become a shoe size bigger, which is thanks to the combination of hormone produced during pregnancy that relaxes your ligaments apart from the weight your feet bore for nine months.
Menstrual cycle
Those women who had been complaining about irregular periods might begin to have them more regularly. Quite a few women also experience lesser or total lack of menstrual cramps perhaps because their uterus has stretched out. This could also be due to the lesser number of receptor sites for prostaglandins, which are chemicals that trigger your cramps. The duration of your pregnancy also clears up lesions and wards off the endometriosis for some time. Pregnancy also reduces the ovarian and endometrial cancers. With breastfeeding these benefits are multiplied.
Bladder
The muscles of the pelvis and the urethral sphincter are traumatized by labor thereby weakening the muscle tone. While most women regain the bladder control, a few women can experience the urine to leak under stressful conditions or while laughing, sneezing, jogging, etc. By doing Kegels, one can strengthen the pelvic muscles.
Bones
Bones are sure to be affected by pregnancy and delivery. No matter how much you try to replenish with the appropriate nutrients, if you have borne a child, you are sure to suffer some bone loss.
Thyroid
About five to ten percent women have underactive or overactive thyroid for a few months after delivery. While the problem goes away, symptoms of long-term hypothyroidism that which may include lethargy, depression, and difficulty in concentrating, are likely.
Blood
Gestational diabetes and pregnancy-induced high blood pressure usually go away after delivery. However, they are likely to revert in the long run.
Brain
You begin to multitask like a mother. While you may think that you had become forgetful, you manage to do many things at a time as a mother than earlier. Your brain is programmed to tackle different things in one go. In fact, your brain power is much higher than it was before.
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