Pregnancy Symptoms: "Constipation"

The inability to pass stools becomes more prevalent as your baby grows. This is because of the extra weight being placed on your intestines. Many practitioners recommend prenatal vitamins with added fiber to help things move along but does that only solve the problem?

Actually, like most pregnancy symptoms, it does serve a purpose (besides making you uncomfortable). Here's how: During pregnancy, the hormone progesterone causes the smooth muscles of the large bowel to relax, making them sluggish and allowing food to hang around longer in the digestive tract. 

The upside: There's added time for nutrients to be absorbed into your bloodstream, allowing more of them to reach your baby. The downside: what amounts to a traffic jam for waste products, with nothing going anywhere anytime soon.

How to avoid constipation during pregnancy? 

What I did was:

• Drink 250 ml to 500 ml (warm or cold as you desire) as soon as I wake up before anything else
• Depending on my mood, the next thing would be a banana or directly go for my breakfast generally made of: brown bread, a glass of milk or hot chocolate.
• Included more veggies in your diet but with less oil and fat

  

  Eat more veggies

• Avoided rice as much as I could because with or without pregnancy, it hardens my stool even yams, white bread 
• Eat dried fruits with a bit of yoghurt
• In between meals, grabbed a prune, pear, eat an avocado, carrot...
• Always drink water during the course of the day
• Took a walk whenever I could (try to fit in some kind of exercise a brisk walk, a swim daily. And don't forget, when you gotta go — go! Also help the bloating)

With all mentioned above, you will be just fine. Women are different but that's what worked smoothly for me when I noticed constipation.

What if, we're really given constipation during the whole of our pregnancy to train our muscles to push during birth?!

Exercise daily

Holding it in can weaken your bowel muscles, making it harder to push out the poop. Remember, you need to save your pushing for labor! Ironically, many of the supplements that do a pregnant body good (prenatal vitamins, calcium, and iron supplements) can also contribute to constipation. 

So talk to your practitioner about possible alternatives or adjustments in dosages, or in the case of supplements, switching to a slow-release formula. All I was prescribed was: "Pregwise, folic acid and calcium carbonate"

"I don't know why they say that constipation is a pregnancy symptom. I've poop more in the past 6 months than in all my life".

During my first pregnancy I had a short episode of diarrhoea only a few couple of days at the early beginning. With my third surprisingly, I dealt with it during a full month (the 5th month) like never before. Who would like to combine diarrhoea with pregnancy? No one and the little one kicking already inside when you're in pain is a mood killer for sure not to mention the night trips when sleeping turns out to be so precious.

Diarrhoea may also be the result of all that good-for-you food you're now eating, the extra water you're drinking, or even the pregnancy workouts you've begun. Some women find that their prenatal vitamins causes loose stools; changing brands can sometimes make all the difference. Remember, while a mild case isn't anything to really worry about, severe diarrhoea (more than three stools a day), or stools that are bloody, have mucus, or are purely liquid are a sign to give your practitioner a call (today).

Has pregnancy worsened or lessened your Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) symptoms?

I would say "Yes" in my case. The diarrhoea phase led me to "probiotics and Immodium" in my second trimester and after 4 to 5 days I actually felt a lot more better than staying without medication at that point. It was just unbearable. However to fight it, I considerably reduced my intake of yoghurt, cow milk, white bread, wheat or gluten cereals and even some fruits. The BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast) method didn't work for me.

But no worries, IBS symptoms are more difficult for mom than they are for baby.

Hoping these tips will help you in any way, have a safe and joyful pregnancy :)

Aevermint