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I asked my twitter buddies “what’s your biggest pregnancy pain?”  Turns out I wasn’t alone in the pet peeve department. Here are the five pains that topped the list (I had three of them):

1) Nighttime trips to the bathroom

It makes sense that one would have to pee a lot more in the third trimester with all our organs squeezed into a small space. But peeing five times a night in the first trimester when the embryo is pea-sized? What’s that all about? Turns out that the amount of blood in our body increases dramatically when we get pregnant, causing our body to process more fluid and well… let more of it out.

2) Sciatic pain, otherwise known as “Oh, sh-t, I can’t move my leg!”

I was in the bathtub when it came on in the second trimester. I had to scream for my husband to help me out of the tub. I literally could not move on my own. For two days afterward I had to lift my right leg with my hands because I couldn’t let my right leg muscles move on their own without suffering intense, sharp pain. Thankfully that pain subsided with a week or two, though it can last longer for others. The pain results when the sciatic nerve, which runs from under the uterus to the legs, becomes inflamed from pressure or injury. Here are some tips to combat the pain.

3) Heartburn

My mother told me her story: She went to her OB-GYN in the beginning of her first pregnancy and said, “I think I might have heartburn.” Her doctor told her, “If you think you might, then you don’t. You will know when you have heartburn.” A month later, she knew she had heartburn. It’s a burning sensation from the bottom of the breastbone to the lower throat. During pregnancy, the placenta produces the hormone progesterone which slows down digestion and relaxes the valve separating the esophagus from the stomach, allowing gastric juices to slide through. Later in pregnancy, pressure from the growing baby pushes those juices even farther into places they shouldn’t be.

4) Hemorrhoids

For many women, pregnancy is their introduction to painful hemorrhoids (thankfully this is one pain in the butt that I bypassed). They occur when veins swell in the anus or rectum. Some of that swelling is caused by constipation (another pain in the butt during pregnancy, but a generally livable one so it doesn’t hit the top 5 list). Here are tips on preventing and relieving hemorrhoids.

5) Round Ligament Pain

Not sure what this is? Then perhaps you’re not in third trimester yet. As the uterus grows bigger and bigger, the ligaments holding it in place are stretched thin. For some reason, we can feel this stretch the most on the right side near our pelvis. This is one of the discomforts that made it hard for me to walk fast, or even walk at all, as I reached the end of the pregnancy.

What are (or were) your biggest pregnancy pains in the butt?  Any insider tips for the rest of us on how to relieve the pain?

Other Posts You Might Like:
Five Pregnancy Myths You Need to Know
Do We Have a Right to Complain?
Pregnancy Insanity?

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 17th, 2009 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Health & Wellness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.