Painful Pregnancies: Will They Always Hurt?
When a woman finds out she’s pregnant, many emotions and questions come into play. This is especially true with respect to her and the baby’s health.
Painful pregnancies are among the most common concerns among expectant mothers, especially first-timers. What should they know?
During pregnancy, women experience many physical and emotional changes. Your baby will grow inside your belly, your hormone levels will change, and your life will be radically altered in a number of ways.
As the pregnancy progresses, it’s normal for new ailments and discomforts to emerge. As they’re new to the woman, it’s not always obvious how to deal with them.
With painful pregnancies, it’s best to remain calm and research each symptom in depth in order to know how to react. Of course, the advice of the attending physician should always be considered.
Painful pregnancies
During the gestation period, the mother may experience some common ailments. However, it’s necessary to be alert at all times to the variations of these symptoms in order to avoid complications. Some of these include:
Headaches
Headaches are very frequent during pregnancy. They can be easily relieved using relaxation techniques. These techniques also allow you to avoid taking any medicines that may harm the baby.
If these methods prove ineffective and a remedy is required, ask your doctor to prescribe the most appropriate one.
However, headaches may also be a sign of pre-eclampsia. This term refers to high blood pressure during pregnancy. When this condition occurs, total rest is required, as is strict medical treatment to control any signs of hypertension.
Belly or groin pain
These often present themselves between weeks 17 and 26 of pregnancy. As the uterus grows, the round ligaments around it stretch to provide more support. This produces a sharp pain in one or both sides of the abdomen.
This discomfort doesn’t have to be alarming, since it’s usually the product of getting up quickly from bed or a chair, coughing hard, or a variety of other everyday acts.
Physical activities such as walking and playing sports also cause this kind of pain. It can start with discomfort in the groin that moves upward toward the hips.
To relieve the pain, it’s best to sit or lie down slowly on the side that isn’t affected and breathe slowly until it passes.
“Each pregnancy is different. The woman’s body experiences the process in a particular way depending on her condition.”
Back pain
In painful pregnancies, back pain is quite common. As with leg pain, the woman’s weight gain is the primary cause of this discomfort.
To reduce the discomfort, it’s best to stay in good physical shape, walk and stretch frequently, sleep on your side with a pillow between your legs, avoid standing for long periods of time, and use hot or cold compresses on the affected area.
Braxton Hicks contractions
Over the last half of pregnancy, the expectant mother may experience occasional contractions in the uterus. By about week 37, these should occur more often, irregularly, and with less pain. As the delivery date approaches, this type of contraction is a sign that labor is about to begin.
If you experience contractions accompanied by lower back pain that occur more frequently than six times per hour, contact your doctor as soon as possible to find out how best to proceed. In addition, you should have a check-up in order to rule out possible complications.
Unfortunately, painful pregnancies are more common than we’d like. Having experienced one prepares us to apply simple, natural options to counteract common discomforts. However, it shouldn’t be assumed that if we become pregnant again that the experience will be the same.
Each pregnancy is different. Each woman’s body experiences the process in a particular way depending on her condition.
Her emotional and physical state during pregnancy can be diametrically opposed from one to the next, so there is no guarantee that painful pregnancies mean that the condition will always repeat itself.
Conversely, if you’ve been lucky enough to have experienced a pregnancy free of pain, there isn’t guarantee that the next one will be as comfortable.
