Third Trimester Pregnancy: Physical Changes

Transcript

” Welcome to the third trimester or the latter part of your pregnancy. So we break pregnancy down into three trimesters and the third trimester runs from approximately week 27 to week 40 and week 40 is usually considered full term actually week 30, seven to 40 is full term, but a lot of people go overdue until week 41 or even 42, but there are a lot of changes that are occurring in this trimester. The baby is obviously getting bigger and that’s creating a lot of pressure in your abdomen. And the things that can result from that pressure would be things like heartburn or having trouble eating, or maybe needing to change the types of foods that you eat. That aren’t quite so filling. So smoothies will work well or salads or soft foods, but just be sure that you’re getting the nutritional content that you need in your foods and in order to keep you and your baby healthy, other things that can happen that maybe aren’t so pleasant, but usually go away after delivery would be things like hemorrhoids from constipation or pressure in your abdomen and on your rectum and varicose vein.

So that’s where the baby’s compressing those big veins and it can lead to dilation of the veins in the lower legs. And even sometimes in the vulva and those are called varicose veins. And again, they’ll generally go away after delivery after the pressure of the baby isn’t there anymore, and your breasts are getting much bigger and they might may start to develop some secretion of colostrum or pre milk as the milk glands actually start to prepare for the milk production that is going to be needed when the baby comes along. So there are a lot of things going on in the third trimester, some very enjoyable like feeling the baby move and having that baby with you all the time. And you can probably start to notice the baby has a bit of a personality, but there’s also some real physical changes that are happening in your body. And some may be quite uncomfortable. Most of those things are all normal, but if you ever have any concerns that some of those physical changes are not normal, really important to talk to your healthcare provider. Enjoy!”