Doctors are very attentive to edema in pregnant women. It is impossible not to notice them. The treatment of edema that has already appeared is proper and nutritious nutrition, as well as a healthy lifestyle.
Most pregnant women have encountered the problem of edema while carrying their child. In this case, the duration of pregnancy does not matter, and not only the hands, but also the legs, face and even the whole body can swell. Why does this happen and is swelling really dangerous?
Doctors are very attentive to edema in pregnant women, while women themselves sometimes do not see anything wrong with them. Swelling of the hands during pregnancy occurs due to the accumulation of excess fluid in the tissues. This happens due to the increased need to drink during pregnancy, as well as due to the accumulation of sodium in the vessels and tissues of the pregnant woman. This vital microelement is able to attract and retain fluid in the body, but you really want something salty during pregnancy. Salt consists of sodium and chlorine.
You can check for swelling of the hands by pressing lightly with your finger on the surface of the hand. If there is swelling, a dent will remain at the site of pressure. However, it is impossible not to notice more pronounced swelling of the hands or fingers. In this case, it is often difficult or even impossible to remove the ring from your finger.
Swelling of the hands most often affects women whose activities involve repetitive movements, for example, knitting, sewing, modeling, or working with a computer. A woman may feel tingling in her fingers, numbness in her hands, and a burning sensation in her wrists.
Statistics show that one in four women suffers from swelling after childbirth. This is caused by the accumulation of fluid in the body, just like during pregnancy. Edema of this kind usually goes away on its own; for some, it disappears within a few days after birth, for others it continues for another month.
Swelling of the hands towards the end of pregnancy indicates retention of urine in the body. It is possible that an enlarged uterus during pregnancy puts pressure on the ureters.
The cause of edema should be found out. It is advisable to reduce salt intake. There is an opinion that you should drink less fluid during pregnancy, however, it is wrong. Water is necessary for the whole body and for the development of the fetus, so you still need to drink. You can drink about 1.5 liters of liquid per day, it is better if it is clean water or fruit drinks.
It is necessary to limit the consumption of salted or fried foods, spices, smoked foods, carbonated water and coffee. You should avoid heat and overwork, take more walks and get proper rest during pregnancy.
Traditional medicine during pregnancy advises drinking decoctions with a diuretic effect, however, they have contraindications. If your feet are swollen, cool baths and foot massage will help. Usually harmless physiological swelling disappears after such procedures. If your hands still swell, you should definitely start treating the edema in order to avoid possible consequences.
Edema can be a symptom of late toxicosis, and there are also renal and cardiac edema, which, unlike physiological ones, must be treated immediately. If pressing on the surface of the shin leaves a mark on the skin or you wake up and see swelling, this is a reason to consult a doctor.
In addition, you should monitor your weight gain. A sudden large increase in weight may also indicate swelling of the hands or other parts of the body.
Throughout pregnancy, a woman gains 10-12 kg. The exceptions are underweight women - they gain a little more than normal - and overweight women (they, on the contrary, should gain less). By the 29th week, the increase per week is about 500g.
Preeclampsia is more common among women who are carrying their first child, expecting twins, suffering from sexually transmitted infections, or giving birth after the age of 35.
The basic rules for preventing edema are simple. You should not get carried away with excessive consumption of water and foods that cause thirst, exclude baked goods and sweets from your diet, do not overheat in the sun, and, of course, get proper rest and sleep.
Physiological swelling of the fingers is not dangerous for a pregnant woman, however, swelling should not be treated indifferently. With complex edema, there is a risk to the fetus, so it is better to start treatment as early as possible.
Doctors recommend first of all to follow a certain diet and get more rest and walks. It is important to constantly monitor your weight. Get tested on time. The appearance of protein in the urine, accompanying high blood pressure and shortness of breath, indicates the need for hospital treatment.
Your doctor may prescribe medications to improve kidney and heart function. Treatment is prescribed only by a doctor and selected individually based on the test results of the pregnant woman. Trust your doctor, because he will weigh the likely benefits and risks and will not prescribe medications if it is inappropriate or dangerous for you and your baby.
In practice, it has been proven that edema can be cured by identifying and then eliminating the causes that provoked its appearance. Doctors advise that if you have swelling, you should avoid overwork and spend less time in the sun.
Prevention of the appearance, as well as treatment of edema that has already appeared, is proper and nutritious nutrition, as well as a healthy lifestyle. Avoiding salty, sweet, carbonated drinks and bad habits will also minimize the possibility of edema. During the period of bearing a child, it is advisable to eat properly and variedly; the daily diet must include a variety of soups and cereals, as well as natural juices and fruits rich in vitamins.
You shouldn’t completely limit yourself to drinking, but if you are still going to reduce the amount of liquid you drink, then do it gradually and carefully. You can follow simple recommendations:
Painful sensations will be relieved by hand exercises, as well as proper rest. However, you should not be careless about hand enlargement, which is accompanied by swelling of other parts of the body, such as the back, lower back, and lower abdomen. If this is your case, then the right thing to do is to tell your doctor about problems during pregnancy.
To monitor the condition of a pregnant woman, doctors constantly weigh the woman, monitor changes in blood pressure, and take blood and urine tests. Hidden edema is determined only by the sudden weight gain of the pregnant woman.
By listening to these simple tips, you will remain in good shape and in a great mood, swelling will not bother you, and your first meeting with the long-awaited baby will not be overshadowed by anything.
During the period of bearing a child, the body of the expectant mother undergoes significant changes, which are often accompanied by unpleasant symptoms, for example, swelling in the legs during pregnancy. Few women manage to avoid them. The likelihood of encountering this problem is very high. Therefore, it is important to know what causes this complication, whether it can be avoided and how to relieve swelling of the legs during pregnancy.
Edema is an excess accumulation of fluid in the body. Since there are many reasons that cause them, the swelling itself differs from each other.
They can be classified into:
Edema in humans, including women during pregnancy, can be of varying degrees of severity:
Why do my feet swell during pregnancy? This condition does not always signal the development of pathology. Most often, swelling of the legs during pregnancy is physiological in nature and is caused by the accumulation of sodium in the body of the expectant mother, which attracts water. The cause may be the abuse of salty or fried foods, the hot season. Such swelling is not dangerous to a woman’s health and is easy to eliminate. Often it is enough to reduce your salt intake and drink diuretic tea.
Swelling of the legs during pregnancy has other causes. They occur at the end of the term due to the enlargement of the fetus and the pressure of the uterus on the blood vessels. This causes stagnation of venous blood. Such swelling usually extends only to the ankle joints and does not pose a threat to the health of the woman and baby.
The problem is aggravated if the expectant mother leads a sedentary lifestyle. In this case, varicose veins may occur. For this reason, swelling in the legs during pregnancy goes away on its own after the baby is born.
Swelling of the legs during pregnancy can be a consequence of pathologies in the functioning of organs. Chronic diseases of the heart, blood vessels, or kidneys, existing even before conception, or that arose during pregnancy, can provoke their development.
Of particular danger are swelling of the legs during late pregnancy, caused by gestosis (another name is late toxicosis of pregnant women). This condition poses a threat to the health and life of both the expectant mother and the baby. Swelling due to gestosis from the legs often spreads to the arms, lower back, face and is accompanied by high blood pressure. This condition requires immediate hospitalization of the pregnant woman.
Most often, a woman can detect leg swelling during pregnancy on her own. The very first and most noticeable sign of the development of this condition is difficulty fastening your shoes at the end of the day. If you press your finger on the skin in the ankle area, you will leave a dent that will not go away immediately. Swelling in the legs during pregnancy manifests itself as an increase in ankle volume by more than 1 cm per week.
Swelling of the legs in pregnant women can be recognized by the condition of the skin on them. First, the skin becomes loose, and then becomes very stretched.
Sometimes swelling of the legs during pregnancy can be hidden. They can be detected if weight gain is systematically monitored. If your weight increases by more than 400 grams per week, or if there are uneven changes that are spasmodic in nature, you can talk about the occurrence of edema. Read more about weight gain during pregnancy >
To detect hidden swelling, it is advisable to monitor the amount of fluid released. To do this, you need to measure how much of it entered the body and how much was excreted per day. When making calculations, you should take into account not only water and drinks, but also soups, liquid dishes and fruits. One fruit can be equal to 50 ml of water. If less than 75% of the incoming fluid is excreted in the urine, then hidden edema is highly likely.
Is swelling dangerous? It would be correct to say that the main danger is not edema, but the diseases of which they are a manifestation. Internal edema is dangerous because the muscle tissue of the internal organs, which has accumulated fluid, can compress the umbilical cord vessels and cause fetal hypoxia.
If your legs swell significantly during pregnancy in the first trimester, it is necessary to examine the heart, liver and kidneys for pathologies. This condition, which arose in the second half, accompanied by an increase in blood pressure, may indicate the development of gestosis. It lies in the fact that against the background of hormonal changes, first in the capillaries, and later in large vessels, microscopic holes are formed through which fluid outflows into the tissues, and therefore the blood thickens.
If adequate treatment is not carried out, mother and baby may die. Therefore, it is extremely important to promptly diagnose the development of pathology, one of the first signs of which is swelling.
Let's consider the main methods of combating edema.
What to do if swelling of the legs occurs during pregnancy? Treatment depends on what caused the condition. If they are due to simple reasons (abuse of salty foods, heat, etc.), then treatment of leg swelling during pregnancy comes down to following a diet and monitoring the amount of fluid a woman consumes per day.
The principle of the diet during this period is to exclude smoked, fried and salty foods from the diet. Salt, which has the ability to retain water in the body, is especially dangerous in this state. Therefore, it is recommended to slightly under-salt your food. After consultation with your gynecologist, you can go on a salt-free diet and take diuretics for a short time.
If the swelling is due to more serious causes, these treatments are not suitable. The cause that caused them should be urgently identified and treated. For example, if the cause of swelling of the legs during pregnancy is gestosis, then you cannot limit drinking or take diuretics, since the expectant mother’s body already suffers from dehydration. In this case, you will need drug therapy in combination with diet and doctor's recommendations.
In case of gestosis, a pregnant woman is recommended a special diet. Food should be rich in protein, since its deficiency contributes to increased permeability of the vascular walls. The expectant mother's diet should contain the required amount of carbohydrates and fats, since if they are deficient, even more protein will be needed. Liquids must be consumed at least one and a half liters. Salty, fatty, fried, smoked foods and carbonated sweet drinks are excluded.
Folk remedies for eliminating swelling of the legs consist of using herbal teas, decoctions of cranberries, pumpkins or dried apricots. But it is necessary to remember that serious pathologies can be hidden behind edema, the development of which worsens every day and can threaten the health of the woman and the fetus. Therefore, under no circumstances should you self-medicate or replace traditional therapy with folk therapy. Sometimes such tinctures and teas can be harmful, for example, with gestosis. Therefore, before starting treatment with folk remedies, it is necessary to consult a doctor.
Principles for preventing leg swelling during pregnancy include:
Swelling of the legs is a common companion of pregnancy. Regardless of their severity, you should report them to your doctor, who will prescribe adequate treatment. You should not self-medicate, since sometimes swelling indicates serious changes in a woman’s body that threaten the health of her and her child.
Every pregnant woman at least once in nine long months is faced with the phenomenon of edema. Most often, expectant mothers are concerned about swelling during late pregnancy. Sometimes swelling is a sign of serious illness. In our article today we will try to understand the causes of edema in pregnant women, the basic principles of their treatment and their possible consequences.
First, let's figure out what swelling is and what it happens. Edema is the saturation of tissues with the liquid part of the blood, which for one reason or another leaves the bloodstream. There can be many reasons for such a redistribution of fluid.
Violation of the ratio of salts and fluids in the body. The main ions that regulate the osmotic pressure of fluid in the body are sodium, potassium and chlorine. Sodium chloride or common table salt “pulls” water molecules onto itself, causing its accumulation in organs and tissues. A typical example of such a salt imbalance would be swelling after excessive consumption of salty foods. To avoid this, it is better to follow proper nutrition.
Violation of the structure and permeability of the vascular wall. A striking example of this would be, for example, an allergic reaction or inflammation. The vessels are damaged by infectious agents or allergens and the liquid part of the blood freely escapes into the surrounding tissues. Local swelling occurs at the site of inflammation or an allergic reaction, for example, swelling of an inflamed joint or swelling due to an allergic reaction to a bee sting. Another good example of edema due to the anatomical structure of blood vessels is swelling of the legs due to varicose veins and chronic venous insufficiency.
Kidney disorders. The main system that regulates the balance of fluids in the body is the urinary system: the kidneys and urinary tract. When kidney function is impaired, urine formation decreases and fluid and salt retention occur in the body. Therefore, with any acute and chronic infections, autoimmune diseases or structural abnormalities of the kidneys, special “renal” edema can be observed. Such swelling is characterized by the fact that it is expressed in the upper half of the body - the face, “bags” under the eyes. This form of swelling appears in the morning, after a night's sleep, and goes away a little in the evening.
Disorders of the cardiovascular system, namely acute and chronic heart failure. When the heart is weak, blood pumps more slowly, stagnating in organs and tissues. With such stagnation, sooner or later the liquid part of the blood goes into the interstitial space, causing so-called cardiac edema. These edema, unlike renal edema, appear in the evening, especially after physical exertion, and are localized in the lower half of the body - the legs and abdomen.
Of course, a pregnant woman can experience all of the listed forms of edema, especially if the patient suffers from heart or kidney disease. The period of pregnancy itself contributes to fluid retention in the body, and against the background of concomitant diseases, edema can become dangerous.
Factors predisposing to edema in pregnant women:
These physiological changes are observed in any pregnant woman, just if she is healthy, does not suffer from excess weight, eats and drinks adequately, plays sports, and moves a lot - swelling appears very rarely.
Below we will discuss several of the most common types and causes of edema in pregnant women, as well as ways to treat and prevent them.
Preeclampsia is a special and extremely dangerous condition. It is interesting that gestosis was known to ancient healers, who noted that this condition appears during pregnancy and is cured only after its end. Millennia have passed, and modern science has not fully understood the true causes of the disease, as well as methods of treating it.
Of course, methods and drugs have appeared that can alleviate the course of gestosis, but it can be completely cured only after ending pregnancy. Modern scientists associate the appearance of gestosis with the peculiarities of vascular restructuring in pregnant women, as well as the presence of aggravating factors:
Preeclampsia is characterized by a classic trio of symptoms:
All these symptoms are closely related and form a classic “vicious circle”, exacerbating each other. Preeclampsia can manifest itself with all three symptoms, but sometimes one of the symptoms becomes the leading one - for example, swelling. In this case, it is very difficult to make a correct diagnosis and determine what caused it.
Women with suspected gestosis should be under special supervision by a gynecologist and a antenatal clinic therapist, regularly donate urine, measure blood pressure and weigh themselves. Daily weighing helps to identify so-called hidden edema.
There are special tables that determine the severity of gestosis. As a rule, the main parameters are weight gain, the degree of obvious edema, blood pressure figures and the amount of protein in the urine.
With a picture of mild gestosis, a woman can be observed for several weeks in a antenatal clinic. Urinalysis, blood pressure, and weight gain are regularly monitored. A woman should follow a diet with limited salt and liquid, do fasting days on protein foods - cottage cheese, kefir, chicken.
As needed, drug treatment is added: soothing herbs, medications that improve blood flow, renal diuretics, magnesia. It is very important to assess the condition of the fetus, do CTG and keep a schedule of movements.
Moderate physical activity is also very necessary - walking, swimming, yoga - this helps fight swelling and improves blood circulation. If the condition worsens, the patient is sent to the hospital for further treatment and, if necessary, termination of pregnancy.
With moderate gestosis, the woman is sent to a hospital, where monitoring will be carried out daily. Drug therapy is mandatory. The patient is prescribed droppers with magnesium, electrolyte solutions, blood pressure medications, medications to improve blood flow, sedatives, a special diet and exercise sets. Moderate gestosis can be observed in a hospital setting for no more than a week - if the patient’s condition does not improve, the question of her delivery is raised.
In case of severe gestosis and its extreme manifestation with convulsive syndrome - eclampsia, the question is about the immediate start of labor and provision of assistance in intensive care conditions. The pregnancy will be ended at any stage in order to save the mother’s life.
Preeclampsia is dangerous for both the expectant mother and the fetus. It calls:
The main insidiousness of gestosis lies in its unpredictability: no one knows whether a given patient will suffer from gestosis during pregnancy, as well as how quickly this condition will develop.
Since the disease is dangerous, it is therefore very important to follow simple rules during pregnancy:
Below we will consider other common causes of edema in pregnant women - less dangerous than gestosis, but no less significant.
The second cause of swelling of the legs, feet and thighs during pregnancy after gestosis is varicose veins and chronic venous insufficiency.
As we have already said, due to the progesterone background and compression by the uterus of the outflow pathways of venous blood from the lower half of the body, chronic venous insufficiency is one of the “favorite” diseases of expectant mothers.
And if a woman had problems with varicose veins before pregnancy, then swelling of the legs can greatly complicate life while waiting for the baby.
Treatment of swelling in varicose veins is as follows:
The most common kidney disease during pregnancy is gestational pyelonephritis, or inflammation of the kidneys and urinary tract that occurs during pregnancy. This condition occurs due to compression of the ureters by the uterus and stagnation of urine in the kidneys. Also, kidney inflammation during pregnancy occurs against a ready-made background - with urolithiasis, chronic pyelonephritis, renal hydronephrosis and other diseases or abnormalities of the kidney.
Due to decreased kidney function, the amount of urine excreted decreases, and excess fluid in the body accumulates in the tissues. Special renal swelling occurs on the face and under the eyes.
The main signs of a kidney infection:
Treatment of renal edema is entirely based on the treatment of kidney infection:
Untreated kidney infection can permanently damage a woman's kidneys, as well as cause developmental delays and infection of the fetus, premature birth and other pregnancy complications.
As we see, there are a lot of reasons for edema in pregnant women, some of them are extremely dangerous for the woman herself and her child. It is strictly forbidden to invent diagnoses for yourself and engage in self-medication. Before dealing with edema in one way or another, you should definitely consult a doctor.