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 o...