Headaches During Pregnancy

If your headache includes any of the following symptoms, call your doctor immediately: sudden or explosive head pain, headache accompanied by fever and/or stiff neck, headaches accompanied by slurred speech or serious vision problems.

If you work in a strenuous job or in a risky environment, you should tell your employer about your pregnancy immediately and talk to your doctor about taking your leave sooner or see if you can work in another section of the company temporarily.

An example of a risky job might be a job where you have to climb or balance (like a telephone repair job), a chemist, x-ray technician, medical disease research, or a job where you have to do a lot of lifting, or a job where you work in a poorly ventilated location, or where it is very hot or very cold all the time.

You should also be wary of jobs that require you to travel to countries where you might be exposed to exotic or contagious diseases.

The Second Trimester

What's happening inside the womb now:

Your baby is more active, though you can't quite feel it moving yet. He may start to put his thumb in his mouth now, and his skull is starting to get more solid. Ribs are starting to form but aren't quite visible yet.

Early in the second trimester, hormones are having their effect! The prostate gland or ovaries are developing. The roof of your baby's mouth is nearly complete.

Around the third week of this trimester, your baby now has a layer of transparent skin, and is starting to form eyebrows and hair on his head. Eyes and ears have more definition and bone and marrow are now forming.

One month into the 2nd trimester, your child is four and five inches in length and weighs nearly 3 ounces. Your baby's eyes are becoming sensitive to light. Her eyes are becoming sensitive to light and she can squint, frown and display other expressions. She can also make a fist.

That all important fat layer that keeps us warm and protects and energizes our body is forming now. Your child can swallow! The nerves in his brain are now connected to the ears which have reached their final position on the skull. Your son can hear your heart beat, and the rumble of hunger in your stomach. He may react to loud noises outside his environment but jumping or moving.

By the 18th week of your pregnancy, you may already have felt the first signs of life in your womb. If not, you WILL soon. Your baby's hearing has improved. He can faintly hear your voice and the voices of others as you converse. He can move his muscles reflexively and his kidneys are producing urine which is stored in your amniotic sac after it is excreted. He has a new coating (vernix) and very fine hair (lanugo) to protect his thin skin.

About 6 inches long now, weighing about 9 ounces your baby is most likely moving around by now and you can feel it! Her skin is thicker and less transparent and she has eyebrows and some hair on her head. During this trimester, bone marrow begins to produce blood cells and your child starts to ingest sugar from your amniotic fluid.

Your baby is about one pound around 21 weeks into your pregnancy. She has developed a sense of touch and now has taste buds. Genitalia is complete.

Your child will practice breathing by moving your amniotic fluid in and out of his lungs. His skin is much less transparent and he is developing more fat.

Your son has fingerprints! His inner ear has developed to the point where he can sense whether he is upside down in the womb. By now, he will have developed a schedule or cycle for sleep and wakefulness

Fingers and hands are fully developed though your baby's ability to control these tools is far from refined. You will notice more movement as your child explores his limited universe within the womb.

Maybe close to 2 pounds by your 25th week, your baby is growing faster with clearly defined eyebrows, eyelashes and eyes. At the end of this trimester, you are 2/3 of the way to delivery and the changes you and your baby experience during the final trimester will be even more dramatic. Right now your baby's organs and immune system are working hard to reach completion in time for delivery, and he has grown to 3-4 times in length since the end of the first trimester.

During your second trimester you may still be experiencing morning sickness and you may have started to have headaches and a sensitivity and aversion to certain smells and foods.

If you have waited to tell your family, co-workers and friends about your pregnancy, you can probably do so now. Most women are skittish about announcing a pregnancy before the second trimester begins because miscarriage most often occurs during the first trimester. If your appearance or your symptoms changed early in your pregnancy, you may already have been faced with this announcement. If you work in a risky job or a strenuous or dangerous position, you have probably already told your employer you are pregnancy and decided on what you will do to protect your child and yourself during your pregnancy. If you have NOT done this, you need to do it ASAP.

During this trimester you will want to start thinking about and talking to your doctor about delivery-related issues.

Give yourself plenty of time to talk about these things and decide so you are not caught short when you are trying to prepare your home and family for the impending delivery during your first trimester.

Where will you have the baby, who will you choose as your pediatrician? Will you take childbirth classes and have a natural delivery or do you want to opt for pain medication during birth. If you are going to take a childbirth course, ask your doctor for recommendations and remember that you will usually need a partner.

You can also find out about the alternatives by looking on these websites:

http://www.lamaze.org

http://www.braleybirth.com

Another question you might discuss with your doctor is whether to breast feed or use formula? As long as we are on the topic of breast feeding, let's talk about the changes in your breasts and how to best care for your breasts during pregnancy and prepare them for breast feeding, if that is your choice.

Your breasts are going to get bigger over the course of your pregnancy, and your rib cage will get wider to accommodate your growing baby.

You may notice tiny blue blood vessels on your chest as your blood vessels dilate and enlarge.

Your nipples and areola (the dark area surrounding the nipple) will get larger and darker so that your newborn infant can more easily see them for nursing after birth.

Little bump may appear around your areola. These are oil glands that help to keep the area around your nipples clean for nursing.

Sometime around your 14th week of pregnancy, your nipples will start to leak a whitish fluid called 'colostrum'; a rich protein-filled form of early milk that will clear your child's digestive tract after delivery.

You can buy disposable breast to absorb leaks and keep your skin from getting irritated. Tuck them inside your bra and avoid embarrassing leaks!

Be sure you purchase a roomier bra to accommodate your enlarged breasts. You can consider wearing a nursing bra if you'd like. They are comfortable and have a lot of cushioning and stretch. To take care of your breasts as they change, consider these suggestions:

Use clear water to rinse your breasts when bathing so that the protective oils produced by the new oil glands are not washed away. If you want to toughen your nipples to make the nursing transition easier and less painful, you can use a soft washcloth to rub them so that they get tougher. As you adjust to this texture, you can graduate to something rougher so that your nipples are not quite as sensitive by the time you start to nurse your baby.

If your breasts are swollen or uncomfortable, you can put a cool ice pack inside a wash cloth and hold it against the side of the breast to bring down the swelling or take a warm shower to soothe the tissue. During your second trimester, your doctor may recommend other tests to monitor the growth of your baby. Amniocentesis is usually performed between 13 and 18 weeks, sometimes later in the pregnancy depending on the situation. The doctor will numb your abdomen and insert a long needle into the amniotic sac. There is no risk to your baby.

The fluid drawn from the sac can tell the doctor about abnormalities or problems. If you are over 35, your doctor may recommend this test to be sure that your pregnancy is progressing normally.

A percutaneous umbilical blood sampling (PUBS, or cordiocentesis) helps your doctor tell if your baby suffers from specific diseases like sickle cell disease and hemophilia. In this test, a needle is also passed through your abdomen, into your uterus.

But in this case, the doctor will draw a small sample of blood from the umbilical cord. Some time around week 15 of your pregnancy your doctor may suggest an ultrasound or sonogram, to look at the size of your baby and determine whether your pregnancy is on schedule.

An ultrasound is painless, but you do have drink and hold a lot of water, so you may be a bit uncomfortable. The technician will use a handheld device and slide it back and forth across your abdomen, to produce an image of your baby from high frequency sound waves.

If you are still exercising by the end of your 2nd trimester - good for you!

Just remember not to push yourself until you are out of breath or exhausted. Take breaks and allow yourself the luxury of adjusting to your new size and shape.

Avoid exercise that strains your lower back or legs, or exercises that require you to lie flat on the floor.

Instead of riding a bike in the street, consider riding a stationary bike so that your balance and shifting center of gravity do not cause you to fall.

You can exercise by scrubbing the floor or taking a power walk to the post office or corner market.

This is also a good time to start your Kegel exercises, named after Dr. Arnold Kegel. Kegel exercises strengthen your pelvic floor and prepare you for delivery, and you can do them anywhere.

Tighten and release the muscles on your pelvic floor as if you were trying to stop the flow of urine.

The name of the muscle you are tightening and releasing is 'pubococcygeus' (PC) and it goes from your pubic bone to your tailbone. Pregnancy can weaken this muscle and cause you to leak urine when you laugh, cough or strain.

One study reported that 50% of pregnant women had symptoms of 'bladder weakness' during and after pregnancy.

But the Kegel exercise doesn't just keep you dry, it keeps your baby's head in the best position for labor and delivery, so it is doubly important.

Don't make the mistake of tightening your entire lower abdomen, thighs and/or buttocks. Be sure you isolate and specify the muscle by thinking of tightening the muscle you would tighten to stop urinating.

Kegel is easy to do, and you can do it whenever you THINK about doing it; at the grocery store or at work. Start with 10 to 25 cycles, a few times a day, and work your way up to 100 squeezes a day.

Sometime during this trimester, you will probably notice a change in your hair and skin texture. Some women report oilier or drier than normal hair and skin, and some even say their hair gets straighter or curlier.

Some women also report that their hair grows faster, and that their skin is more sensitive when they are pregnant.

The glands that produce oil in your body will increase or decrease production depending on your hormonal balance.

For some women, the second trimester of their pregnancy signals the best 'hair days' of their lives.

While there is no evidence that coloring your hair can hurt your baby, if you want to stay away from harsh dyes or permanent solutions you can ask your stylist to use techniques that do not directly impact the scalp and provide only highlights or temporary color.

But remember that your new hair texture may 'take' dye in a different way than your old hair once did. So, be ready for anything!

This is the time most women buy a new pair of larger shoes. Yes, your feet do grow during pregnancy and may grow as much as one full size. Choose comfortable, slip on, supportive shoes and wear maternity pantyhose if you find your legs getting tired or swollen during the day.

Sometime between week 18 and week 22 of your pregnancy you will feel your baby moving in the womb. If you are overweight it may take longer for you to feel movement. And sometimes the placenta is located toward the front of the uterus so it is harder to feel the baby move until it gets larger.

In time your baby will kick and move and the feeling will be so sharp that it is hard to ignore. By the 23rd week, your baby is much more sensitive to sound and touch coming from the outside so you can expect that you will get a response if something startling happens. A baby's activity will increase up to 10 times the normal level when mom is under emotional stress. So if you have a near miss car accident or something startles you, you will notice your baby's reaction, a well.

Pregnancy hormones will also act on your emotions so be prepared to feel overly emotional about everyday things and to have some strange and emotional dreams when you sleep. This is all normal. However, IF you experience any signs of depression or mental disturbance, be sure to talk to your doctor immediately.

In general, the second trimester will be easier than the first and the third. By now you are used to coping with heartburn, back pain, headaches, fatigue and other symptoms and you have adjusted your lifestyle to accommodate your pregnancy.

Be sure to drink plenty of water, eat right, keep your blood sugar in check and get plenty of rest. If you work or go to school, be sure to get your feet up as often as possible to keep your back and legs from bothering you.

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