Vagina Changes During Pregnancy: What’s Normal And What’s Not
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A myriad of changes occurs throughout your body once you’re pregnant. From gaining weight, unwanted changes in your complexion, ugly skin tags, and stretch marks, horribly visible veins, constipation, heartburn, a frequent unstoppable urge to urinate, and to top it all excessive hair growth. When it comes to these transformations, your vagina ain’t no exception. As the days go by during your crazy nine months, the vagina alters its appearance in preparation for that D-day. But, the day you finally welcome that little human growing inside of you, he makes it all worth the troubles.
During your first trimester, you probably won’t notice any significant changes in your vagina. But enter the second trimester, and it’s altogether a different story. Your vagina alters its appearance remarkably. It could come across as notably dark and, in a majority of pregnant women, could appear to be purple or blue. And why the change? Well, all these changes can be attributed to your hormones. During your pregnancy, there is a pronounced rise in your levels of estrogen along with an increase in blood supply to your uterus. These, together support the development of your baby.
All the above factors could contribute in producing varicose veins in your vagina, which quite obviously, aren’t really fun. Roughly one out of ten pregnant women suffer from this predicament. But don’t be too alarmed, the good news is, they thankfully disappear close to six weeks post birthing.
Another phenomenon to watch out for is the increase in your vaginal discharge, especially seen during your first trimester. This discharge is characteristically clear and doesn’t possess any foul odor. It is simply your body’s method of ensuring that all those pesky infections are kept at bay since pregnancy has a knack to lower your overall immunity levels. However, it’s important to point out, that if you’re experiencing a yellowish or whitish vaginal discharge, that does possess a distinct malodor and produces the urge to itch, then this is possibly a sign of infection and requires you to consult a doctor for treatment.
The marked increase in blood flow to your vagina could also make you feel as though your lady parts are inflated. This, thankfully, is simply a sensation and your vagina doesn’t in actuality appear that way. According to Dr Mary L. Rosser from Montefiore Medical Center in New York, “For some women, the extra blood supply increases sensation.” Which is basically a euphemism for saying ‘Well hello, orgasms!’
Your vagina may also, possibly, fart. Now, there aren’t a whole lot of studies conducted on the delicate topic of farting through your vagina but here’s what we got – there is a trapped air pocket inside your vagina that is pushed out and produces the oops-I-passed-gas sort of noise. According to ob-gyn Dr Katie Bolt, “It’s not a sign of anything bad” and could possibly be due to a combination of you increasing womb, exercise, having different intercourse positions, and exhausting your pelvic floor muscles.
There could also possibly be blood. Though pregnancy means goodbye periods, at least for a little while, there is still a possibility of spotting during that first trimester which is perfectly common and shouldn’t alarm you. According to March of Dimes, roughly 50% of soon-to-be mommies experience some spotting or bleeding during their pregnancy. But one must also mention that if at anytime you do happen to experience spotting, even if it happens to spot, let your doctor know. According to Dr Rosser, “If spotting is associated with pain, including cramps, call your health-care provider right away”.
All these changes making your head spin? Well don’t be disturbed, the good news is that any of the transformations to your vagina only span as far as your pregnancy and you should expect things down there to be back as they were by the sixth-week post delivery. So embrace these temporary discomforts for they all our indications of a beautiful, little human growing inside you, on its way to making you a wonderful mommy!
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