How Your Body Changes Post-Pregnancy

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DISCLAIMER: As always, this post is only to provide general information. Please consult with your healthcare professional regarding treatment for your specific needs.

The ways in which your body changes during pregnancy are pretty well documented and you probably already have a good idea of what will happen. However, the changes don’t always stop there and there are a range of differences that women notice in the months after having a baby. Whether you are currently pregnant or you are thinking about having a baby at any point in the future, it is worth knowing about a few of the most common changes so nothing catches you by surprise. 

Hair Loss

You may not know it, but each of us tends to lose around 100 hairs a day when we are not pregnant! During pregnancy, your body is flooded by hormones, so you lose far less than normal. After you have given birth, your body starts to compensate for this so you may find yourself losing more hair than usual during the first six months. Most likely, your hair will soon start to return to its usual growth cycle, but if you’re experiencing a prolonged delay in growth, it might be time to see a specialist: like a Trichologist.

 Breast Changes

In the first couple of days after giving birth, you may find that your breasts have become flushed, swollen or sore. This swelling will tend to go down if you choose not to breastfeed or after you have finished breastfeeding. Additionally, the skin around your breast may sag, and even if you don’t breastfeed, you may find yourself experiencing milk leakage for a few weeks after birth. 

Stomach Differences

In the days after giving birth, you can feel that your uterus is hard and round. Around six weeks or so, you should no longer feel it pressing against your abdomen. You will probably notice some stretch marks around your skin, and even the fittest new moms may have some excess skin in their midsections. To help with this, you may want to think about engaging in some exercises such as yoga or Pilates, and building these up over time. Remember not to rush into anything too quickly as your body has been through a lot during pregnancy.

 Back Pain

It will usually take some time before the abdomen muscles ( which have become stretched during pregnancy), regain their former strength. Your body reacts to this by naturally putting on weight around your back muscles. This can end up leading to some sort of back pain. These problems usually work themselves out around six months following giving birth, but you may choose to see a chiropractor if this is not the case.

 Skin Discoloration

If you have suffered from acne during pregnancy, you should notice your skin starting to clear itself up. If this is not the case or you have other underlying skin conditions that pregnancy has exacerbated, you should consider seeing a dermatologist.   

I hope this post provides all of my new and expecting mamas with additional information that you find beneficial. Again, this post is to provide general knowledge and can vary from person to person. Following up with your OB/GYN can provide you with information tailored to your specific needs.

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How To Be Healthy In A Relationship

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Beginning a new relationship with someone should be a joyous thing. However, there are several ways that a relationship can become less than healthy. It can affect not only your emotional health but also your physical health if your relationship doesn't progress in a healthy way. You might find that you get into bad habits for a number of reasons, from becoming too absorbed in your relationship to encouraging each other to make less healthy lifestyle decisions. When you're no longer in the dating game, a lot of things can change, but it's important to take steps to remain healthy in every way.

Don't Lose Your Sense of Self

Relationships need to be healthy in an emotional way, helping to protect your mental health. One of the most important things to remember is that you need to remain an independent person, with your own sense of self. While you can also become a couple who are in sync, you don't want to end up like a single entity, instead of two people with their own thoughts and feelings. Both of you should make sure that you still have your own friends, hobbies and time to yourselves so that you can maintain healthy boundaries between you.

Take Care of Your Sexual and Reproductive Health

Although you might be in a monogamous relationship, you still need to think about your reproductive and sexual health. It's smart to make appointments for regular STD testing, particularly if you reach a point where you're considering not using condoms. If you're not planning on having a baby any time soon, don't forget to think about your choice of contraception and ensure you're using at least one effective method of birth control. Remember that condoms are the only form of contraception that can prevent both pregnancy and disease.

Make Healthy Choices Together

It's more common than you might think for couples to get into unhealthy habits together, especially once you reach the stage of cohabiting. When you live together, it's very easy to feed into each other's laziness or lack of willpower. You can convince each other that pizza for dinner again won't hurt or that it would be much better to snuggle up at home than to go to the gym. But if you make an effort to make healthy choices together, you can encourage each other to be health instead of unhealthy.

Grow an Open and Trusting Relationship

Being able to trust each other and communicate is essential in any relationship. You need to spend time nurturing an open and trusting relationship if you want to have a healthy and loving partnership. Good communication is vital for a strong relationship, so spend time talking about issues both big and small. If you don't talk about things, feelings can get buried and go ignored until everything bubbles over. You should talk regularly, even about issues that might not seem like a big deal.


If you want your relationship to be healthy, you have to nurture the relationship but also take care of yourself.


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Thinking of Delaying Your Period? Here's the 411 On What You Need To Know

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Is it Safe?

There’s rarely a “good” time for your period to arrive, but some are a little more frustrating than others. While it’s obviously a natural occurrence and something we all get used to, for some women, the pain can be unbearable and for others, you may not feel like dealing with the agonizing symptoms that may come with it.  

If you are the latter, or just someone who just doesn't want to deal with Mother Nature at the time she may trotting along, delaying your period can be done, BUT it should not be done on a regular basis. There are treatments available which can delay your period for up to 17 days. It  can be extremely effective in most cases; however, as with many medications it does come with some  risks.

What Are My Options?

Oral contraception is usually a fixed dose via the combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP). Women who choose to use the COCP generally have fairly predictable menstrual cycles, experiencing their period during their 7 day break after their monthly strip of pills ends. If you’re on the COCP you can delay your period simply by moving straight on to your next pack without your normal break. Your cycle will then be delayed until you take a break from taking the pill. This shouldn’t be done regularly, and you should aim to return to normal for a couple of months at least following the break.

For women who don’t use the COCP, a synthetic hormone tablet Norethisterone is usually administered. The prescription for the tablet is generally one 5mg tablet three times a day for the given number of days (with the maximum being thirty days) a woman wishes before her period resumes to normalcy.

Norethisterone should only be used occasionally. It is a progestogen hormone. Progestogens are hormones that sustain the uterus lining. Under normal circumstances, there is usually a fall in the level of progestogen hormone in the body leading to the start of the menstrual cycle. The hormone sustains the uterus until a time when the tablet is stopped. The tablet also plays a vital role in changing the quality of the endometrium wall. The changes prevent any fertilized eggs that have been fertilized from implantation.

The Risks Involved

While Norethisterone is generally the safest method for women who choose to delay their period, there are some risks associated with it for some people. For example, those with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) will have to visit their doctor for medical advice before taking Norethisterone. It’s always a good idea to consult with your doctor before taking any new medication.

Side effects of the pill can include some issues with stomach bloating and discomfort, as well as potential spotting or discharge. There are various other potential side effects which may occur, and although the likelihood is rare, it’s worth checking them out before deciding to go ahead.

In most cases it’s perfectly safe to delay your period under certain circumstances, provided it’s not something you do too often or for an extended length of time. As always, you should consult with your gynecologist or primary care physician to see if any of these options may work for you and your situation.

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Let's Talk About SEX......ual Issues We Hate

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You know I’m all about staying fit and healthy. I hit the gym on a regular basis and I’ve released hundreds of articles on how you can keep fit. Whether that’s the proper way to exercise or the correct way to diet, but one subject I haven’t really talked about is sexual health. In fact, you’ll be hard pressed to find a single post on my blog that mentions it. But I’m not the only one. It seems that as a society, we shy away from this topic as much as we can. Sure it will pop in the news occasionally and we all remember sex ed from high school. But for the most part it’s forgotten, and that’s dangerous. There are a few sexual health issues you shouldn’t be afraid to talk about, no matter how uncomfortable they make you feel. 

 

Impotence

 

Impotence is perhaps the biggest taboo in sexual health. Don’t talk about it, don’t bring it up and certainly don’t bring the topic up with your partner, right? The same is true for a low sex drive and sexual dysfunction. But these are all medical conditions and they’re nothing to be ashamed of. In fact when you look at statistics they are all shockingly common. Hollywood might want you to think that every guy is ready to go as soon as he sees a girl naked. But it’s just not the case. The good news is that if you talk about it, you can fix it. There are treatments for all the issues that I’ve just mentioned. After seeing a healthcare professional, you can get a cialis discount card to get the medication that you may need. Once you have that, you can get on the track to healthy relationships in the bedroom. Don’t forget that problems like this can be symptoms of a more serious issue. Particularly if they occurred suddenly and that’s why they should always be checked out. 

 

Infertility

It’s weird how our minds work. When we’re young we have sex and pray to whoever it is we pray to that the pitter patter of tiny feet don’t arrive in nine months. But once you’re in a committed relationship, and you’re settling down the gears might switch. You start to focus on trying for a baby and it can be devastating when you don’t find you’re not pregnant. Even after one try, you’ll start to think that it’s not going to work. You might search online and find the pill in some cases has stopped women conceiving even after they have stopped taking it. But you have to remember a shocking statistic- your chances of getting pregnant each time you have sex without any contraception is on average five percent. That means ninety-five percent of the time it won’t work. It’s a frightening thought but it should also be reassuring. If it doesn’t work one time you should not automatically assume you have a problem. But once you go to your Physician, you can find out what you can do to improve your chances. 

 

I hope you see now there should be no taboo when talking about sexual health. If you can talk about it, you can tackle it head on.

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