Posts Tagged ‘prevent stretch marks’
Doing Your Best to Prevent Stretch Marks During Pregnancy
Pregnancy is more often than not accompanied by stretch marks. While they can be itchy, stretch marks aren’t painful. Often, stretch marks appear after the fourth month of pregnancy, when the skin on the baby bump begins to get bigger and the skin over the belly is stretched even tighter. Stretch marks appear on fleshy body parts that tend to expand the most during pregnancy. These areas are the breasts, upper arms, lower abdomen, rear and thighs.
Pregnant women, as well as those planning to get pregnant, need to have information on the link between pregnancy and stretch marks and how to prevent stretch marks during pregnancy. Let’s look at the gene factor first. If your family has a history of pregnancy stretch marks, you’ll likely get them. Putting on weight quickly is the root cause of stretch marks, which makes you a choice candidate for them during pregnancy, especially if you have twins. Dry skin and a nutritionally inadequate diet are also causes of stretch marks. People with less pigmented skin are also more likely to develop stretch marks.
Prevent Stretch Marks During Pregnancy
If you are pregnant, or are planning to get pregnant, you can do a few things to prevent stretch marks during pregnancy. Keep your body hydrated by drinking no less than 8 glasses of water each day. Make sure the stretch mark lotion you use is safe for pregnant women; better yet, go with a stretch mark cream that’s specially made for pregnant women. Make sure your diet is healthy and low in calories.
Keeping the Postpartum Stretch Marks at Bay
Once you have given birth, your stretch marks will contract and shift from bright shades of purple or red to dull silver tones. If you become pregnant again, these stretch marks may color up again. However, if you maintain a healthy weight in between your pregnancies and during your next pregnancies, you’re not apt to get new stretch marks.
Pregnancy Stretchmark Creams
Pregnancy stretch mark creams are all about prevention. While these creams help minimize those stretch marks you already have, you’ll want to use them as early as possible if you want to experience best results. According to one study on pregnancy stretch mark cream products, Revitol Stretch Mark Prevention Cream, Barmon, and Zenmed Stretta have been determined to be the best creams in the marketplace. These three tested highest in term of safety, satisfaction, duration and expedience.
Remember that your pregnancy should be a gratifying part of your life. There are downsides, such as pregnancy stretch marks with which you must deal, but it’s all worthwhile. If you want to prevent stretch marks during pregnancy, try to find and read as much information as you can about them. Some things you can do is adopt a healthy diet, drink lots of water, and use a good pregnancy stretch mark cream.
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Here’s What You Don’t Know About Pregnancy and Stretch Mark Prevention
You can use all of the stretch mark creams you wish when you are expecting a baby, but you probably still won’t be able to prevent stretch marks during pregnancy. When you’re in your fourth month of pregnancy, your body will naturally begin a fast growth cycle. If you happen to be one of the very few women fortunate to be born the right genes, you can avoid pregnancy stretch marks by following proper health care and regular use of pregnancy stretch mark creams. For most women, however, the factors below indicate if they will have to deal with pregnancy stretch marks.
1. Genes: If the women in the pregnant woman’s family (e.g., mom, sister, grandmom) had stretch marks, she will have stretch marks as well.
2. Own history: Pregnant women who’ve had stretch marks in the past (pre-pregnancy) are definitely going to get stretch marks while pregnant. Your stretch marks may even get longer with every pregnancy.
3. Fast weight gain: If, during the first couple of months of your pregnancy, you gain weight fast, stretch marks may begin to appear on your body starting on the fifth month.
4. Taking care of health: Women who don’t practice proper health care (e.g., regular exercise, good nutrition and drinking lots of water) are likely to get pregnancy stretch marks.
5. Skin pigmentation: Women who have light skin are more given to getting stretch marks during pregnancy.
Stretch Marks Still Appear Even After Following Pregnancy and Stretch Mark Prevention Tips
Fortunately, stretch marks don’t come with health problems and don’t cause pain. However, stretch marks can retain more moisture and can also cause skin dryness, which can induce the occasional itchiness.
Obviously, as the stomach has the most severe, abrupt expansion in most pregnancies, it is also the location that is typically hardest hit by stretch marks. But pregnancy can also cause rapid skin expansion in other areas of the body, not just the stomach. Your arms, breasts, buttocks, hips and thighs are likely locations for stretch marks as well.
Pregnant women with light skin tend to get reddish stretch marks. Pregnant women with dark skin, on the other hand, tend to have stretch marks whose color is somewhat the opposite of their skin tone. The color tones can be anything from pink to dark purple.
Don’t think that your stretch mark blues are over once you deliver. You may continue to develop stretch marks after giving birth or the ones you already have may look even worse since your body is going to keep on undergoing fast shifts in terms of size.
There is light at the end of the stretch marks. Over an extended period of time your stretch marks will fade. Unless your weight gain continues after delivering, the pregnancy stretch marks will probably have already lost most of their coloring after about six months. Once you are done nursing your baby, ask your OB-GYN to recommend a stretch mark product. The popular Barmon Stretch Mark Cream is often their top choice of non-prescription creams for stretch marks. Do not start using this stretch mark product until you stop breastfeeding your baby.
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