My Swollen Legs

We have talked about the skin changes we had during pregnancy a few days ago. If you want to refresh your mind about that, you can click here to find out more. For now, let’s talk about the change we have around legs and feet. As you can see, a pregnant woman can almost lost her ankle shape or her legs shape as well. Why is this happen?

First, we have the swollen legs.

This can be happen because the body itself has hold more blood than usual during pregnancy. The blood circulation from the lower part of the body to the upper part has become hampered. This also can be happen because pregnant woman’s big womb has given too much pressure to the veins which carry the blood from lower part to upper part of the body. This can cause the swollen legs.
How to overcome it?
First, you can lie down and put your legs about 20-30 cm higher for about 15-20 minutes.
Second, you can try to sleep on your left or right side of your body to avoid too much pressure to the vena cava so that the blood circulation will not be hampered.
You can also increase do some twists to each legs as exercise.

The second, we have the stiff feet.
The also happen because the blood circulation is hampered. Only this time, the pressure is around the hip area. The other reason why we have stiff feet is because the composition between calcium and phosphor on the blood is not balance.
How to overcome it?
Try to sit down and put your legs straight on the floor. Then try to pull the palm of stiff legs with one of your hand. You can ask for help if you find you big belly is too big to do such an exercise.
Try to stand right away and reduce the pain by massage the stiff muscle with hands until the pain decreasing itself.
This stiff muscle can also be prevented by avoiding any kind of salty foods.

The last one is varicose vein.

It happens when we can see the veins swollen and appear near the skin’s surface. This could be happen because pregnant woman must carry a heavy burden (her own body and womb) every where during pregnancy. This burden hampered the blood circulation while the blood volume itself has increased rapidly to provide more oxygen for the baby inside the womb.
How to overcome it?
Lift you legs as often as you can. Use a chair or a table to prop your legs and keep your legs higher when you sit down.
You can also do some exercises like walking around. Do this continually to prevent this varicose vein to appear.

Well, that’s all for legs and feet. Next time, we will continue our discussion with other things about pregnancy again.