Stretch Marks & Itching - How To Manage It While You Are Pregnant?

While pregnancy is a wonderful time as you are anticipating the arrival of your child, it can bring many skin problems along with it. While these are nothing major, you do need to take care of these problems as they may either leave marks on your skin post-pregnancy and even cause discomfort during it. Some of these problems are discussed here.

• Stretch Marks: Pregnancy stretch marks are minute thin lines, which occur during the later stages of pregnancy on the abdomen. These stretch marks develop when the belly tries to adjust rapidly to the increasing weight of the fetus in the stomach, but the skin cannot withstand the pressure. The elastic fibers under the skin rupture and produce stretch marks.
• Affected areas: Although not common, the stretch marks can also be found in thighs, buttocks, breasts, upper arm region and the hips in some cases. During pregnancy, the marks look reddish, which gradually transform into white after pregnancy. The marks depend on how quickly you gain weight and how much you gain during pregnancy.

What can be done?
After pregnancy, the stretch marks usually disappear but only a laser surgery can eliminate them. In order to prevent them from appearing at all, the doctors suggest a healthy & balanced diet full of anti-oxidants, vitamin A, vitamin E, lots of vegetables & water from the early pregnancy stages. Doctors also suggest exercises like yoga, which will retain the elasticity of the skin.

As your pregnancy develops, you might experience severe (at times recurrent) itching around your growing belly. In order to get rid of the itching, the doctors will recommend the usage of cold moisturizers. You should avoid bathing in hot water and try keeping your skin as moist as possible to get rid of the itching. If the itching tends to be extreme, you should seek the help of a doctor.

Skin Changes
There might be other significant skin changes due to pregnancy. Doctors suspect that an elevated level of pregnancy hormones causes the melanocytes (melanin producing skin cells) to produce an excessive amount of pigments. To avoid the skin changes, the doctors might recommend a prescribed application of sunscreen lotion. Most of the skin changes tend to disappear after delivery. The skin changes that might affect you during pregnancy are:

1. There might be appearances of several dark patches around your face (melasma or the pregnancy mask).
2. Development of a dark patch in the adjoining skin between the navel and the pubic region known as linea nigra
3. There might be a significant darkening of the skin around the nipple regions from the thirteenth to the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy.
4. During pregnancy, you might also develop numerous pimples in your body.
5. Some women might experience a certain redness on their hands that tends to be itchy.