Friends enjoy today’s guest post and please pass it along to your pregnant friends who are likely asking themselves, “Is this normal?!”
Ah yes, the moment you find out the pregnancy is positive, you gush into the room with a variety of questions crossing your mind, what are you going to name the baby? Is it a girl or a boy? Should you start shopping for the baby already? After it’s all settled and the news has been conveyed, you’re bound to wonder what’s next. Thanks to our mother’s horror stories and romantic comedies, we all know pregnancy is no child’s play (literally). Although we’re all well aware symptoms like nausea, fatigue and back pain are common symptoms associated with pregnancy, here are the craziest things pregnancy does to your body and mind that no one has ever told you.
- Memory loss
Regardless of what you’ve said, memory loss may be a common symptom for many, and this is bound to occur after a few months into the pregnancy, usually when the other symptoms such as nausea, fatigue, back pain are the greatest. You may experience a lack of ability to concentrate, losing your train of thought and disruption in memory. In certain cases, these symptoms are sometimes confused with Alzheimer’s disease by people. But this is nothing to worry about as this is a common symptom associated with pregnancy. Research from Mayo clinic does support the fact that growing bump can impair memory due to lack of sleep, hormonal changes and disquiet of an impending major life change.
- Your breasts may start leaking out of nowhere
We all know how breasts start producing milk when a baby is born. But surprisingly, this isn’t always the case; sometimes a pregnant woman or even a newly pregnant woman’s breasts may start producing breast milk out of nowhere. This is referred to as lactating. The crazy part here is, sometimes breasts may start lactating just by hearing a baby cry, and this baby not necessarily has to be theirs. So try avoiding bra-less days or white T-shirt outings, unless you want to cause a traffic pile up. Guess movies don’t tell you everything after all.
- Extra saliva
This may sound super weird, but it’s true. Quite a lot of women are said to produce more saliva than usual. The cause of this may still be unknown. Changing hormones is usually the cause assumed sometimes or nausea could also be another reason as an excess amount of saliva is typically a body warning mechanism trying to tell you that you’re about to enter the puke city.
- Higher Sex Drive
This is usually said to occur as soon as the symptoms such as tiredness that often happen in the first few weeks fade away. You’re revved up sex drive likely goes through the roof, even when your partner is more than satisfied. Also, this is liable to continue until the day of delivery (surprise surprise). According to a recent made for mums survey, 21% of the women are likely to experience a higher sex drive during pregnancy. Moreover, blood volume is said to increase during pregnancy. The volume of plasma increases 40-50% and red blood cell mass 20-30% increasing arousal.
- Heightened sense of smell
During pregnancy, your nose may be prone to catching scents which you’re likely to ignore on average days. This can either work in your favour or not. For people enjoying certain kind of smells such as the smell of coffee or newly baked beef etc. this could feel absolutely fantastic, but bad smells may smell ten times more as well. This could make going to public toilets a total disaster and in some cases even certain food may end up making you want to gag. Research shows that this heightened sense of smell is usually due to increased estrogen which affects the olfactory system in the body.
Despite the positive and negative aspects of pregnancy, you may find some of these changes your body makes quite absurd. But trust us; nothing can be as beautiful and wonderful as bringing another life into this world. So just sit back and relax, being pregnant does have its privileges as well, it’s not everyday people throw parties for you and bring in all sorts of stuff they might think you need.
About the Author
Andrea Bell is a Freelance writer by day and sports fan by night. I write about tech education and health related issues (but not at the same time). Live simply, give generously, watch football and a technology lover. Find me on twitter @IM_AndreaBell.
