The MamasteFit Podcast Episode 101 – Managing Prenatal Discomforts: Top Five Challenges and Solutions

[00:00:00] Gina: Welcome to the MamasteFit Podcast. In this episode, we’re going to be discussing what we believe to be the top five prenatal discomforts that you may experience throughout your pregnancy. Pelvic pain, just any sort of discomfort or pain within your pelvic region. We’re going to be going over nausea, GI distress- we’re kind of grouping that all together.

[00:00:18] Roxanne: It’s all one.

[00:00:19] Gina: Fatigue and insomnia. Braxton Hicks. And then the last thing is going to be shortness of breath. If there are other ones that you are experiencing, feel free to comment them down below, but these are the top five that we are going to be discussing in this episode.

[00:01:20] Gina: Welcome to the MamasteFit Podcast. And so we’re going to be discussing prenatal discomforts. And the first one, because we’re going to discuss five, is going to be just pain. Just pain.

[00:01:32] Roxanne: Physical pain.

[00:01:33] Gina: Lower back pain, pelvic pain, tailbone pain. Generally the pain in the pelvic region is where we’re going to be targeting, because obviously you can feel pain in other places, but that’s probably like one of the most common discomforts that I notice for a lot of folks. And it’s important to start with: pain is not a requirement of pregnancy. We’re also going to be discussing nausea, heartburn, GI distress. We’re grouping that all together, just things with this whole track not operating the way that we would like. That’s going to be a whole grouping that we’re going to discuss, which is going to include morning sickness, constipation, or the opposite, diarrhea, the GI roulette of pregnancy. We’re going to talk about fatigue, insomnia, we’re going to discuss Braxton Hicks, and then shortness of breath. So these are all things that we have experienced in our own pregnancies, and we also find that are really common with folks- we get a lot of questions on these different things.

[00:02:25] Gina: So the first thing we’re going to discuss is pain. And pain is one of those things that we assume to be a necessary part of pregnancy. You just assume that you’re going to be in pain. I know during my first pregnancy, when I went to my provider with pelvic pain, I was like, “Hey, I’m having tons of pelvic pain. It’s really hard to walk.” And they were like, “Well, you’re pregnant!”

[00:02:45] Roxanne: And that’s something that I would honestly have said at the beginning of my labor and delivery career. People would be like, “I have so much back pain,” or like, “My pelvis feels like it’s breaking,” and I’m just like, “Oh, that’s just part of pregnancy, unfortunately, it’ll get better when baby comes out.”

[00:03:01] Gina: So that was their response.

[00:03:02] Roxanne: Dumb.

[00:03:02] Gina: “When you give birth, the pain will go away.”

[00:03:05] Roxanne: Lies.

[00:03:05] Gina: Which is not true, and I learned that there’s actually a lot of things that we can do for pain that we experience during pregnancy.

[00:03:13] Gina: And so during pregnancy, we have an increase in this hormone called relaxin, which increases the laxity or the movement that happens within our joints. And this is really important because we want our pelvic joints to have more movement capability to allow our big old babies to pass through our pelvis. And so this is going to increase the laxity in the pubic symphysis joint, which is the front pelvic joint, the SI joints, and even your tailbone joint. Now this increased movement is happening in all of our joints, it’s not just targeting our pelvis, but we need more strength to help support that laxity. And there’s a lot of different ailments that can come from too much movement happening within the pelvis, or maybe a little bit of instability that’s happening. We can have that pelvic pain, so we have that front pelvic pain, that back pelvic pain, you might have tailbone pain, lower back pain, sciatic pain, so there’s really everything kind of targeting that area could be related to there being too much movement or instability within the pelvis.

[00:04:09] Roxanne: So just like if someone is hypermobile, just outside of pregnancy, so like hypermobility or even the Ehlers-Danlo’s hypermobility within all of their pelvis, they deal with like just chronic pain from that hypermobility and they have to focus on strength training to treat that outside of pregnancy. Same applies during pregnancy.

[00:04:29] Gina: Yeah. So we’re big proponents of strength training throughout pregnancy because we typically need more strength to one, handle all the increased mass that comes from pregnancy, not just like gaining weight, but like your baby, your placenta, all the additional fluid, like you just have more mass regardless during pregnancy that we need strength to manage. We have increased instability, so we need increased strength to help maintain stability of our joints, which is going to help with our comfort throughout pregnancy.

[00:04:58] Gina: So if we’re having pain kind of in that pelvic region, it could be related to one or two things. The first thing is going to be there’s too much movement happening within that pelvic joint, which means we need to increase the stability of it with different myofascial slings. So different like connections of muscle that cross to help stabilize that joint during movement. And then we also need to think about, because we have this additional movement, sometimes we sink a little bit too deep into positions, which the pelvic position could be causing the pain. And so we can kind of look at those two things. What is the position of my pelvis? Do I always favor one position all the time? And then what is the strength and the coordination of the muscles across those pelvic joints to support stability? And so this is why just giving birth is not the solution, because if you have poor movement mechanics that is contributing towards that pelvic pain, or we maintain the same posture all the time, then we’re going to still have those in the postpartum. Especially with the deconditioning that comes with the early postpartum as well, nobody’s going to the gym at two days postpartum.

[00:06:00] Roxanne: Hopefully.

[00:06:00] Gina: I mean, you might be. I would not recommend.

[00:06:03] Gina: And so, giving birth is not a solution. Typically, it’s strength training, focusing on myofascial slings, sometimes we need targeted releases as well, and so this is where massage, chiropractic care, like doing different stretches could be beneficial. But more commonly I find strength training to be more helpful. And in the show notes below, and if you’re watching YouTube, down in the notes below, we’ll link our full podcast episode on pelvic pain where we dive a lot deeper into how to resolve pelvic pain. We have a case study that’s coming out this week on pelvic pain remedies as well. And then we’ll also link our pelvic stability workouts that we have both for SI joint pain, SPD pain, and then overall pain. And then we incorporate a lot of pelvic stability focused exercises within our MamasteFit prenatal fitness program. It’s in the postnatal program. It’s in my book Training for Two. Because pain is not a requirement of pregnancy by any means, and there’s a lot that we can do to be comfortable, like physically comfortable and pain free throughout our pregnancy.

[00:07:03] Gina: But there are discomforts that you will probably experience that are normal within pregnancy. But we’re also going to discuss like, when should you seek help? When have they exceeded the norm? And so the first one is just GI distress- nausea, morning sickness, food aversions. We have heartburn, the roulette of the GI, GI roulette. Are you going to have constipation or are you going to be liquid pooing out your butt?

[00:07:34] Roxanne: Diarrhea. What is it? The Pepto Bismol commercial where it’s like, nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea. Literally, that is what you get. That is the GI roulette.

[00:07:45] Gina: For me during the first trimester, I had morning sickness. During my first pregnancy, I had food aversions the whole time, which made me really scared that I was never gonna eat cheese and meat ever again. I did. Spoiler alert. I can eat meat and cheese again. During my last two pregnancies, I had heartburn which I was confused by. I was like, “What is everyone talking about with this heartburn? Oh, I understand.” And I also had GI roulette. Who knows what’s gonna happen today, throughout the entire pregnancy. Roxanne, can we discuss more what causes this?

[00:08:19] Roxanne: The different reasons for the GI roulette of pregnancy discomforts is progesterone. The lovely pregnancy hormone causes different things to change within our body. The biggest thing is it causes the GI system to slow down, causes it to relax and slow down, which could increase that constipation, because, you know, the poo doesn’t move as easily through the GI tract. But also diarrhea, because it could cause, if it’s not moving, it could be irritable, which then just causes the poo to come out.

[00:08:49] Roxanne: The nausea, because your food is just taking longer to digest within your stomach. So it could either cause nausea because your stomach is just fuller for longer, or like you’re just not really eating, so it’s just bile within your stomach.

[00:09:04] Gina: For me it was if I didn’t eat, I would vomit from the hunger.

[00:09:10] Roxanne: Yeah.

[00:09:10] Gina: And I would be like, “Guys, I need to eat right now. I need to eat right now or I’m going to, bleh.”

[00:09:14] Roxanne: Yeah. And that was the only time I would get morning sickness with my first pregnancy is if I hadn’t eaten for a while. But as your belly gets bigger, your stomach also doesn’t have as large of a capacity. So like you can’t eat as large of meals, so then you’re just eating more often to avoid that empty stomach because baby is making your stomach smaller. This is what is causing the heartburn as well because one, the progesterone is causing that like sphincter at the bottom of your stomach or esophagus to relax a little bit and then your stomach is holding food on for longer, so it’s like pushing the stomach up, which causes the acid within your stomach to kind of come up and cause that discomfort. Everyone kind of experiences heartburn differently though. Some people it is at like burning sensation within the chest, like fire just coming up your throat.

[00:10:04] Gina: That’s how it was this last pregnancy for me. The previous one, it was just like a lot of discomfort, like this indigestion type feeling.

[00:10:11] Roxanne: I would feel the heartburn the most when I would lay down immediately after eating, or like I ate something and then didn’t stay upright for a few hours after eating, and then I would lay down, and that was like fiery. But I’d also felt it a lot with my second pregnancy with Colin, where it just felt like fullness right here. And it was like really uncomfortable, and it started at six weeks pregnant. So I would get this feeling, and then if I didn’t eat by 5 PM that day, it was always 5 PM. 5:01, didn’t eat dinner? Nope. You’re not eating dinner today, because it was so uncomfortable. And lovely pregnancy symptom.

[00:10:48] Gina: So let’s discuss some remedies. So for me, morning sickness in the first trimester, had it pretty much every time except for Eoghan’s pregnancy, which I was like, “Oh, maybe it’s just because it’s a boy pregnancy,” but it’s been conflicting information from people on which pregnancies were harder for them. I found the Unisom and B6 to be like the only thing that really helped me in the end, just getting out of the first trimester. But different things like making sure I was eating a meal, like trying to eat more protein was really helpful. Making sure that I was hydrating was also super helpful. Like, all those little things. I found seasickness bands to be super beneficial, but when should someone seek help? Like, when should they see their provider with morning sickness or vomiting?

[00:11:31] Roxanne: Morning sickness and vomiting, if you’re not able to keep anything down, like you are throwing up multiple times throughout the day, like you drink water and you throw it up immediately- that is like probably the biggest red flag. If you cannot drink or eat anything for 24, 48 hours, because you’re just so nauseous, this is going to impact your ability to stay hydrated and also give baby some nutrients. So that could be beneficial to get on some medication or get some remedies from your provider, potentially even be admitted for just fluid and hydration.

[00:12:02] Roxanne: The next thing would be like, depending on how the nausea affects your daily life. Some people like throwing up two times a day, that’s affecting your daily life. So going in and seeing your provider, if the amount of nausea that you’re having and vomiting that you’re having, even like, you might never vomit, but just the nausea is making you not go to work because you’re so uncomfortable. That’s affecting your daily life. And so figuring out a solution, whether or not that is like homeopathic remedies, or the Unisom/B6 combination, finding something that allows you to be able to live a life during your first trimester. Because there’s something called hyperemesis gravidarum, which just means you have morning sickness your entire pregnancy, vomiting your entire pregnancy. But the reason that this is a pretty big deal is that normally first trimester, if you have some nausea and you’re not able to eat as much, it’ll resolve and then you’re able to eat and make up any weight loss that you had in that first trimester. If you’re throwing up your entire pregnancy, this is going to potentially affect the ability to get nutrients to baby, as well as your hydration status. So we want to try to find some sort of remedies that work for people who have this morning sickness, especially if it’s still present pretty strongly in their second trimester.

[00:13:15] Roxanne: So one, if you can’t drink anything, can’t eat anything for like days, go in, see your provider. If the nausea is affecting your daily life and your ability to do like your normal ,activities then go in and see. Because it should not, obviously during first trimester, it’s going to be a little bit disrupted, but if you can’t go to work and make money, or like you are just laying in bed all day, that’s pretty hard to accomplish, especially if you have other children or other activities that you need to accomplish, figuring out some sort of solutions. And then if it doesn’t go away in the second trimester, also seek help.

[00:13:52] Gina: I will say in my first trimester, I feel like I was just like confined to the couch for a month. And I just gave my kids toys to play around me.

[00:14:02] Roxanne: And it’s hard to do that though if like you do have to go to work. if you work at a hospital, morning sickness is pretty hard if you can’t go to work because you’re throwing up every five, ten minutes.

[00:14:14] Gina: So if you’re dealing more with the constipation, diarrhea side of things, first thing is hydrating.

[00:14:20] Roxanne: Yes. Drink.

[00:14:21] Gina: Drink water. Drink something with electrolytes. That is going to be super helpful for the constipation. Getting like a Squatty Potty can be really helpful, trying not to strain if you do have the constipation because that can lead to the hemorrhoids and other butt complications.

[00:14:37] Gina: But you can also work with a pelvic floor physical therapist during pregnancy if you are dealing with a lot of constipation, diarrhea type stuff, because it could be related to the pelvic floor as well. During pregnancy, the back half of our pelvic floor tends to get a little bit tighter and have more tension because of common postural tendencies during pregnancy. And so if the back half of our pelvic floor is very tight, that’s where our butthole is, and we can sometimes have a hard time releasing to allow things to come out. And so we can get that Squatty Potty, make sure we’re hydrated. You can also do external or internal splinting, where you just take tissue paper and you like press against your perineum to kind of help a poo come out, and this could also be helpful postpartum as well. And we do have an entire episode on butt stuff with Haley Kava, who’s a pelvic floor PT, where we discuss constipation, hemorrhoids, anal fissures, all those things. So if you’re having any of those issues, you can listen to that one or seek help with it as well.

[00:15:33] Roxanne: And with constipation and diarrhea, obviously there are two different, completely different things. So different electrolytes or remedies are going to be a little bit different for each. Don’t drink a bunch of magnesium if you’re having diarrhea cause that will likely just make your diarrhea worse. But if you’re having some constipation, magnesium can really help loosen the poop to make it come out a little bit easier. So discussing with your provider on the different things that you can do for each of those to find some sort of relief from the discomfort can be really beneficial.

[00:16:03] Gina: So if you have heartburn, the things that I found really helpful was to just sleep on an incline. So I would just stack a bunch of pillows in a little triangle. And that’s how I would sleep because it was so uncomfortable being flat. I was like, oh, this is so miserable. So yeah, I would just sleep on an incline and that would make me feel a lot better. That was also really helpful for the congestion, like I had pregnancy congestion, sleeping on an incline helped with that because when I was flat I was just like suffocating on my snot.

[00:16:33] Roxanne: It also helped my pelvic pain when I had the worst pelvic pain with my first pregnancy and I would have to sleep on an incline and it made my pubic bone pain better. It only worked for so long, but it still was better than laying flat on my back.

[00:16:48] Roxanne: But heartburn, there are different remedies that we can use for heartburn. One is an incline that is one option of many. Actually heartburn I feel like has the most options available to kind of help remedy it. One is eating smaller, more frequent meals because if you don’t overfill the stomach that’s going to decrease the risk of heartburn happening. So smaller, frequent meals especially again focusing on like more proteins. And then not eating close to bedtime. So the like having some window prior to going to bed, because then that’s going to decrease the amount of acid that’s going to be able to come up the stomach. Drinking water is really beneficial. Avoiding things like sodas, coffees, like things that would irritate- so all of the things that Gina drank constantly, as well as me.

[00:17:36] Gina: I actually don’t drink that much coffee during pregnancy, for whatever reason, I just don’t crave it.

[00:17:42] Roxanne: Yeah, but bubbles.

[00:17:43] Gina: Bubble tea, though….

[00:17:45] Roxanne: Caffeine. So it’s caffeine. Caffeine.

[00:17:48] Gina: Yeah. Bubble tea though.

[00:17:50] Roxanne: Caffeine and like sodas, like the bubbly sodas, those can both irritate and make heartburn worse.

[00:17:57] Gina: Speaking of bubble tea, there was one time during my pregnancy where I ordered it and I forgot to get the bubbles, and my whole day was ruined.

[00:18:05] Roxanne: Oh my gosh.

[00:18:06] Gina: I just had tea.

[00:18:07] Roxanne: But also, you paid 75 cents for those bubbles.

[00:18:11] Gina: I know, just give them to me. Who’s ordering those? Why am I gonna spend six dollars on a drink without any boba in it?

[00:18:21] Roxanne: Not everybody likes the boba, but they like the tea.

[00:18:25] Gina: Yeah, but you’re gonna spend that much money on…

[00:18:28] Roxanne: Well, it tastes good. It’s like tea is good. Our mom actually stopped getting the bubbles. She just likes the tea.

[00:18:32] Gina: (Laughs) This is not related at all! I’m sorry for all our listeners. There’s this one video where this guy is drinking for the first time and he doesn’t realize that there’s like a gummy bear in it, and he sucks it back and like (laughing uncontrollably)

[00:18:50] Roxanne: Chokes on the bubbles and he spits it out all over his car. Oh my gosh, I saw that.

[00:18:56] Gina: I always think of that when I drink bubble tea.

[00:18:59] Roxanne: Yeah, bubble tea is so delicious. But yes, caffeine could have been making Gina’s heartburn worse from her bubble teas. But yeah, risk/benefit, risrisk/benefit. Little heartburn for some delicious bubble tea.

[00:19:13] Roxanne: But with heartburn, some people will say that it is because baby’s gonna have a lot of hair. I don’t fully think that this is backed up by science, though.

[00:19:22] Gina: I don’t know. Eoghan had the most hair out of all my kids and I didn’t have heartburn with him. And all my girls had been like bald.

[00:19:29] Roxanne: Colin, my son, had the most hair, I think out of both my girls and now I’m trying to remember… Joan didn’t have that much hair. Colin had the most, like he had a little mohawk. A little blonde, little mohawk. I remember it was like two days postpartum and we took pictures of his cute little mohawk. And I did, I had the most heartburn with him, so.

[00:19:50] Gina: Yeah.

[00:19:51] Roxanne: But I don’t know. I’ve had some people who have had a lot of heartburn and their baby came out bald, like not even peach fuzz on that head. So maybe it’ll give you some hope though, that your baby will have a lot of hair. Cause I’ve had some people who couldn’t even drink water and their baby’s head, like, model hair.

[00:20:11] Gina: Makes it worth it, I guess.

[00:20:12] Roxanne: Model hair. And both of those babies have beautiful hair still to this day, like better than mine as an adult.

[00:20:21] Gina: So after the GI roulette and the GI everything, this whole tract of things, because everything is slowing down, there’s relaxing happening throughout this whole system, which can cause some symptoms, but there is remedies. And if you cannot eat anything or keep anything down, seek help. You can also speak with your provider on different like medications for all these other things as well.

[00:20:47] Roxanne: And with the GI upset, do not take Pepto Bismol. This is not an option that is safe during pregnancy. So that is why speaking with your provider to find another option can be really beneficial.

[00:20:56] Gina: I know we did sing the song, so.

[00:20:58] Roxanne: I know, that’s why I wanna make sure, Pepto Bismol, is for all of the symptoms that you might experience, but do not take it during pregnancy or breastfeeding.

[00:21:06] Gina: The next thing is a very common, I guess I don’t know if it’s a discomfort, but it’s fatigue.

[00:21:11] Roxanne: I think it’s disco

you can’t sleep. Oh my goodness. So fatigue during the first trimester is like the… I have never felt that level of exhaustion in my life. Like first trimester fatigue was like, just…

[00:21:34] Roxanne: Your body’s doing a lot of things.

[00:21:36] Gina: A whole new level. Essentially what’s happening is, the moment you pee on a stick, your body’s like, “Oh, we’re pregnant,” and all of your blood vessels begin to dilate and relax to accommodate this increased blood volume that you do not have yet. So it’s a really wide road, so the roads went from a two lane road to a six lane road, but there’s no cars yet. And it’s just like, “Well, what do we do with all of this space?” And so your blood pressure is like, “I’m tired.”

[00:22:08] Roxanne: Yeah.

[00:22:08] Gina: Lay down. And so this kind of takes several weeks. So when you hit the second trimester, you get that boost of energy again, it’s because your blood volume has caught up to the blood vessel dilation.

[00:22:20] Gina: And so we have lower blood pressure. We’re feeling more fatigued and your body’s working really hard to, one, grow a human.

[00:22:27] Roxanne: Yeah!

[00:22:27] Gina: But also to refill all that blood. And so it’s very fatiguing. So you’re just like tired. And then you hit a point where you’re like, well, now I can’t sleep. And for me, the insomnia related more to anxiety at night. So it would come to the evening, I was, one, just like more uncomfortable, like I had the heartburn and so I was like trying to lay upright. I had more like congestion up here.

[00:22:53] Roxanne: So she thought she was gonna die.

[00:22:55] Gina: I thought I was suffocating and so that was just making my anxiety worse. I also had really low iron levels which I read can be related to things can cause increased anxiety because it affects your serotonin levels.

[00:23:09] Gina: So I had a lot of things going against me and had really bad pregnancy insomnia and pregnancy anxiety because of it, because now I was really tired.

[00:23:19] Roxanne: What?!

[00:23:20] Gina: Because I wasn’t sleeping. So, can be very common during first trimester, throughout your pregnancy, to have some insomnia and to be very fatigued.

[00:23:30] Gina: And so during the first trimester, if you are very tired, take a nap, if you can.

[00:23:36] Roxanne: Yeah.

[00:23:37] Gina: Try to rest a little bit more. It’s okay to not go to the gym. That’ll be a big thing that we get where folks are like, “Oh my God, I’m pregnant. I want to do all these things because you read how beneficial it is to exercise, how beneficial it is to eat healthy food, to eat nourishing foods.” And then you’re like, “Well, I can’t eat that. And I also am exhausted. But I need to do these things.” It’s okay to not work out your first trimester. It’s okay to emphasize rest if you are just exhausted. It’s totally fine, it will not ruin your pregnancy, it will not be bad for your baby. If you need to take a nap, just take a nap. It’s okay. And this is me giving you that permission to do that because some of us just need that okay, to be like, all right, I’m good. I can just chill.

[00:24:17] Gina: When it comes to insomnia, the things that I found to be really helpful for me was I tried to identify what the anxiety was and tell myself that it’s not real.

[00:24:30] Roxanne: Just gaslighting yourself.

[00:24:31] Gina: Like it’s not. One of my friends, she said that she named her anxiety Carl and she’s like, “I just tell Carl to shut up.” And I was like, “I’m gonna use that. Carl, be quiet.”

[00:24:42] Roxanne: Why Carl? I love that she chose Carl.

[00:24:45] Gina: “Stop talking to me about this garbage.”

[00:24:47] Gina: I also found another helpful thing for me with nighttime anxiety is to think of a word. I usually use my daughter’s name, Adeline. And then with the letter A, I start listing every word I know that starts with the letter A. Apple, avalanche, ape…

[00:25:00] Roxanne: Avalanche?!

[00:25:01] Gina: And I just keep going down this list of A’s. And then once I’m I can’t think of any more A’s, I go to D. I’m like, dog, dolphin, dump truck. And I just go down the list of Ds, and then I go to E, and then L, and I just keep going down the line, and it kind of brings me out of the cycle. And I’ve like kind of shifted like my mindset and I’m like, “Okay, go to sleep.”

[00:25:20] Roxanne: Yeah. So it’s like a guided meditation that you’re doing yourself, almost.

[00:25:24] Gina: So it’s it brings me to a logic mind where I’m like, “Carl…” and then I just do this like exercise.

[00:25:30] Gina: I also found meditations to be helpful. I didn’t do them a whole ton, but…

[00:25:35] Roxanne: You have four kids. Well, three kids at the time.

[00:25:37] Gina: But I also was taking like a sleepy tea, that sometimes helped.

[00:25:42] Roxanne: Like the Needed sleep tea?

[00:25:43] Gina: Yeah, the Needed sleep and relaxation support was what I was taking and that was really helping. When I would take it, even my whoop watch was like, “Wow, you slept more deeply tonight.” And so I found that to be really beneficial to help specifically with insomnia. And so if you were interested in checking out Needed and getting you some sleep, check out their sleep and relaxation support. You could take it during pregnancy, breastfeeding, postpartum. I take it now in the postpartum because I got four kids. I need as deep a sleep as I can get and the sleepy tea helps me.

[00:26:15] Roxanne: I even had my husband who also has some insomnia, he tries to take it at least every day, but life happens, but it seems to help him too.

[00:26:24] Gina: If you want to check them out, you can check them out at thisisneeded.com and use our code MAMASTEPOD to get 20 percent off your first order or first month of subscription. Highly recommend them. Love them. Rox and I personally use them and we only recommend brands that we personally use. And so check them out at thisisneeded.com.

[00:26:40] Gina: So one of the things that can be common if you’re just like physically tired from doing too much during the day is increased Braxton Hicks, which are like, I hate calling them fake contractions…

[00:26:50] Roxanne: Practice contractions.

[00:26:51] Gina: They’re not contributing towards cervical change, but they’re uncomfortable. They can be painful depending on if you’re super dehydrated or not. But Braxton Hicks can happen usually towards the second half of pregnancy. Some folks have it earlier. I think in subsequent pregnancies, it could start happening a little bit earlier. So for me in my first, I don’t think I experienced them until the third trimester, and the last three were like towards the end of the second trimester is when I started to experience them.

[00:27:17] Gina: But if you are like physically tired from like doing a lot throughout the day, if you’re dehydrated, if you have to pee, these can all be things that contribute towards Braxen Hicks, or uterine irritability. So your uterus is just kind of cramping randomly and then releasing and letting go. I find with Braxton Hicks, the way to tell that it’s a fake contraction and not like, “I need to go see my provider,” contraction is it’s just like a sudden tightening, like the whole belly feels really hard, and then it’s a sudden let go and release, like there’s no wave like sensation to it, there’s no pattern to it, it’s just like random tightening and release and let go. And for me Braxton Hicks is like the whole belly is like really tight, while a labor contraction I find feels more like a charley horse where you feel it build, it peaks, and then it releases and lets go, but you kind of still feel it, but it’s like a change in sensation during the contraction, and I feel it all really low in my abdomen, and it almost feels like this, burning, pulling type, very crampy type sensation, but it’s all very low. They feel very distinct to me. But it can be confusing if you have never felt it before. Even if you have felt it before, you might be like, “Well, maybe this time is different.”

[00:28:31] Gina: So how can somebody tell, when should someone see their provider?

[00:28:36] Roxanne: So normally the recommendation if you are less than 37 weeks, so this is preterm, this is where if baby is born, likely will need some something, whether it’s like a little bit of oxygen or maybe just a little bit of extra love at the birth, this is where we do want to be in a hospital, if the baby is born. So if you have more than five contractions in an hour, they like you to go in just to be assessed to make sure that’s not preterm labor.

[00:29:04] Roxanne: But ways that I usually will recommend if someone calls and they’re like, “I think I’m having some contractions,” time them, see how far apart they are. If they’re pretty close together, obviously go in. But if they’re like once every 15, 20 minutes, try drinking some water, try eating some food to see if that goes away. Try resting, like laying down, resting. If you’re having any sort of like fever or baby’s not moving as well, then those are other things that I would like, little pink flags that I’d be like, “Okay, like definitely come in for that,” as well as having those like contractions. Because the reason you could be having preterm labor, most commonly, is some sort of infection is going on. If you’re after 37 weeks though, I mean, if baby’s born it’s fine, so hopefully you’re just in labor, but that’s when it would be more true labor contractions, like looking for that slow build peak and then let off. And ideally they’re like, two to five minutes apart for one to two hours at a minimum, depending on like how many babies you’ve had before. If it’s your first baby, I say walk closer to the two hours. If it’s not your first baby, and maybe you labor quicker, maybe closer to the one hour, head in, depending on your birth location. If you’re at home, obviously just let your midwife know.

[00:30:19] Roxanne: But that’s really with Braxton Hicks is the waiting for that peak and then let off to see if it’s true labor contractions. And if you’re having more than five in an hour, preterm, figuring out what’s causing it, drinking water, eating some food to see if that helps, because you could just be a little bit dehydrated. You might have not really eaten some really hardy nutrient dense foods that day. Or maybe you’re just on your feet all day long and you just need rest, your uterus as a muscle as well, and it’s just a little irritable. So resting, all of those things, if it doesn’t go away, then head into the hospital or call your provider to see what they recommend to do.

[00:30:54] Gina: I also found that when I was working out in my third trimester, I would have a little bit more Braxton Hicks as well because I was exerting myself. And so in the third trimester, wearing, a belly band was sometimes really helpful as well just to provide a little bit more support for my belly.

[00:31:08] Gina: But if you are not sure What you were experiencing and you’re confused, call your provider. Call Labor and Delivery. “Hey, I’m feeling this, can you give me some advice to help me know that this is labor or not?” Cause obviously there are people that do go into preterm labor, so we don’t want anyone to not seek help when they actually need it. And so call Labor and Delivery, ask questions, go in and get assessed, like if you have the opportunity to, especially if you’re noticing decreased movement with baby, these are all reasons to see our providers and communicate with them and help them be a part of your team.

[00:31:45] Gina: The last common prenatal symptom that you may be experiencing is shortness of breath. You may be a very physically active person, and then all of a sudden, standing up from a chair is exhausting and you’re like, “Why am I breathing so deep?” if you listen to any of the podcast episodes from when Roxanne was pregnant, it’s just (wheezing sound) and I’d be like, “Roxanne, just sit a little bit away from the microphone,” because I could hear your breathing. And she’d be like, “No, you can’t!” And then I would turn the volume up of our podcast recording and it’d be like, (audible breathing). So Roxanne, why does it happen?

[00:32:25] Roxanne: So shortness of breath is very common, obviously I experienced it in my entire pregnancy, but the reasoning is a little bit different depending on where you are in pregnancy. You can experience this first trimester and also third trimester. People more so understand it in the third trimester, they’re like, “What the hell is happening in this first trimester that I walked upstairs and I’m like hyperventilating?”

[00:32:44] Roxanne: So first trimester one, progesterone, it’s changing a lot of things within our body, but the increase in blood volume, that’s trying to happen, but hasn’t yet happened, is affecting the ability of oxygen exchange that’s happening within the lungs. So we need to increase the oxygen that we’re taking in, one, because now we’re breathing for two, we’re breathing for a baby, so we need increased oxygen within our body. So how do we do that? Breathe faster. And sometimes when we’re breathing faster, we don’t take as deep breaths. By having the full movement of the diaphragm to be able to get deep breath, we just aren’t able to do that, so you just breathe a little bit faster because of that increased oxygen demand and because the blood volume hasn’t yet caught up.

[00:33:23] Gina: And do you know what’s really cool about pregnancy is the gas exchange actually is enhanced during pregnancy, and it’s like the only time in our life that this happens. And so when we exercise, our breathing muscles get stronger, which is what helps us breathe easier, in addition to our cardiovascular system is more efficient, and so it makes it so that we can breathe easier during harder exertion. But during pregnancy, the gas exchange at the little alveoli sacs, happen much better, to where we can give, or we can take oxygen and take carbon dioxide more effectively. And our cardiovascular system has more volume, so it can kind of move all that stuff through. So if you think about a factory, like you have 10 workers, like doing their thing, versus a hundred workers doing their thing. That’s what happens during pregnancy. You got a hundred workers, crushing it.

[00:34:11] Roxanne: In those little alveoli sacs.

[00:34:13] Gina: And our gigantic six lane highway.

[00:34:15] Roxanne: But during first trimester, that blood volume hasn’t caught up yet. So you’re breathing faster, you still have this increased oxygen demand, but we don’t yet have all of the hundred workers. They’re still building those up from ten to a hundred.

[00:34:28] Gina: And your ten workers are tired.

[00:34:30] Roxanne: Yeah, your ten workers are really tired.

[00:34:32] Gina: But that’s the only time in our life that this happens is during pregnancy the gas exchange is more efficient.

[00:34:38] Roxanne: Super cool. Your bodies are super human during pregnancy.

[00:34:40] Roxanne: But, that’s first trimester. Third trimester, all of those things are still in place, but the blood volume has caught up. But also you have this growing baby within your abdomen that is just pushing more and more on your diaphragm, so that’s actually decreasing your ability to take deep breaths because your diaphragm can’t go to its full length, contributing even more to shortness of breath.

[00:35:02] Gina: Which is why you have a wider ribcage during pregnancy. So you may notice that your bra strap gets a little bit tighter. It’s because your ribcage expands.

[00:35:10] Roxanne: I know!

[00:35:11] Gina: Because it can’t take a deep downward breath with the diaphragm. And so it’s going to expand outwards.

[00:35:17] Gina: And so, one of the things that I have experienced pain-wise during pregnancy, which is not totally related to any of this, is rib pain. And I would always feel it, right here, in this, right quadrant underneath the right side- I know! So we’ll get into why Roxanne’s like, “Oooh!”- And so what was happening was so my ribcage is widening, the left side is starting to come up a little bit more to make more space and the right side is kind of compressing down, which is kind of creating some like overactivity in this little area or tightness. And so for me the way that I resolved like right rib pain was doing like a lot of side body openers, actually, to kind of create space here, while also strengthening the abs a little bit more on the left side to kind of bring my rib cage into a more neutral position.

[00:36:09] Roxanne: Is that the common tendency, is that we’re more elongated on the left side and more compressed on the right side? So we want to kind of go into that?

[00:36:16] Gina: Yeah. So if you’re finding that you’re having a lot of rib pain, and you’ve kind of ruled out any sort of like preeclampsia symptoms, it could be just like, you’re just scrunched up on the side. So doing some like side body openers can be really helpful. You can also get in there and do some myofascial release. I would have my massage therapist do that during pregnancy, and it was super nice to do some diaphragm release because again, the movement gets restricted, and that lack of movement can also contribute towards discomfort during pregnancy.

[00:36:45] Gina: So let’s briefly discuss preeclampsia.

[00:36:48] Roxanne: So we have a full YouTube video on preeclampsia that we’ll include in the show notes below, but preeclampsia is elevated blood pressure that is starting to affect our body.

[00:36:57] Roxanne: So there’s preeclampsia that’s just protein in our urine, but also more severe preeclampsia has different symptoms of a headache, blurry vision, and then right upper quadrant pain because now it’s affecting our liver and our kidneys. you could also have like epigastric pain, which just means center pain, so different than heartburn. But the reason where that right upper quadrant pain is concerning, again, is because your liver is starting to be affected by that high blood pressure. And so your liver is right in this right upper quadrant. So that is why anytime someone comes in for right upper quadrant pain, we do always want to rule out preeclampsia because sometimes you can have a normal blood pressure, but maybe your blood pressure is normally 90 over 50, and now it’s 120 over 80, that’s pretty elevated for you, so maybe you’re having other sort of symptoms that could be like an indicator that maybe something else is going on. So any right upper quadrant pain, get it checked out, make sure that nothing else is going on, but then maybe do some side body openers. Cause even not pregnant…

[00:37:55] Gina: They feel pretty good.

[00:37:56] Roxanne: It feels very nice.

[00:37:58] Gina: So the common prenatal discomforts that we have seen in ourselves…

[00:38:04] Roxanne: There are so many more!

[00:38:05] Gina: There’s other ones too, so comment below to let us know which ones you’re feeling and we’ll help you explain why it’s happening and when you should be concerned. One is just pain. It’s pain.

[00:38:15] Roxanne: Physical pain.

[00:38:15] Gina: Pain is very common during pregnancy, but it is not a requirement. Commonly, there’s a lot of exercises and movements and different remedies that we can do to resolve this like painful discomfort within your pelvis, your lower back, your tailbone, that rib pain. There’s a lot of stuff that we can do and we can address it with movement. It is not a requirement of pregnancy. I’m like a firm believer that pain is not a requirement, it’s an indicator that something’s off that we can resolve.

[00:38:42] Gina: The other thing that is very common, and there are solutions, nausea.

[00:38:47] Roxanne: Heartburn.

[00:38:48] Gina: Heartburn, indigestion, constipation, or diarrhea, all of those can be really common. We got progesterone kind of slowing things down, making things not work the way that they did anymore. We want to suck up all those nutrients. But again, there’s things that we can remedy. If you cannot eat or keep things down, please seek assistance. In addition, you can work with your provider to figure out what kind of over the counter remedies that you can take, maybe holistic, maybe more pharmacological remedies that you can do to feel better. Cause you, again, you don’t have to suffer. It’s probably a normal part of pregnancy, but if it is affecting your quality of life…

[00:39:22] Roxanne: You don’t need to suffer.

[00:39:23] Gina: Yeah. Pregnancy should not be about suffering.

[00:39:26] Roxanne: You can survive, but not maybe thrive all the time.

[00:39:29] Gina: Fatigue and insomnia, which seem very conflicting, you would think that you would not have, it would be either or?

[00:39:34] Roxanne: But no, it’s, honestly, it’s the insomnia is worsened when you are tired. Like it is some, a lot of people, they are so tired that they can’t fall asleep, so it could be.

[00:39:44] Gina: For me, it was just anxiety. If you have anxiety.

[00:39:46] Roxanne: Anxiety.

[00:39:47] Gina: (Laughs) Rainbow. I feel like it’s like a rainbow cat.

[00:39:51] Roxanne: Yeah!

[00:39:53] Gina: Tell Carl to go away. There are different things that we can do to help reduce anxiety. For me, it was to get my iron levels back up to where they needed to be, do some meditations, take my sleepy tea and tell Carl to be quiet, was kind of… I mean, I just kind of suffered. I don’t know if I really found a solution.

[00:40:11] Roxanne: I’m going to name mine Dane.

[00:40:12] Gina: If you’re fatigued, it’s okay to rest. It’s okay to rest during pregnancy.

[00:40:17] Gina: And the last thing is shortness of breath and Braxton Hicks. So Braxton Hicks, uterine irritability, drink more water, drink more electrolytes, rest, get a belly band, go pee. For me, whenever I had a pee was when it was like really bad for me. So it’s typically just urinary irritability. If it is becoming a pattern, you feel a build, peak and release, so it’s kind of like a wave like sensation, call your provider. Call Labor and Delivery. Ask questions. “Hey, is this normal? Should I be feeling this? Is this labor? Help me.” If you have a doula, ask your doula. You can DM us on Instagram, and if we are on Instagram, we will answer you, but if we’re not…

[00:40:56] Roxanne: Obviously we have insomnia, so we might be on there.

[00:40:59] Gina: If we’re not on Instagram, we will not answer you, so don’t message us for emergencies. It’s like when you call your doctor, they’re like, “If this is an emergency, hang up and call 911.” If this is an emergency, do not DM MamasteFit!

[00:41:11] Gina: And then shortness of breath, like the diaphragm is not working in the same way. We’ve got, we’re still trying to get a hundred factory workers.

[00:41:18] Roxanne: We’re still hiring.

[00:41:19] Gina: Yeah, we’re in the hiring process.

[00:41:21] Gina: So there are a lot of discomforts during pregnancy that you can expect, but there’s also a lot of things that we can do to try to make pregnancy a more comfortable and pain free experience.

[00:41:29] Gina: And so if you want more support throughout your pregnancy with movement so that you can be pain free and feel comfortable in your body, check out our online prenatal fitness programs where we incorporate tons of pelvic stability exercises, tons of mobility exercise, and strengthening exercises so that you can be comfortable throughout the entire journey.

[00:41:47] Gina: You can also check out our online childbirth education course, which is going to help you prepare for birth, understand what options are available to you, plan for birth, and then also how to move confidently during your labor as well. While you should probably experience some pain during labor, you can do some remedies to help decrease the pain with different labor comfort measures, so it is a tolerable level of pain. At no point should we be suffering. We should not be suffering during pregnancy, during labor. We shouldn’t be suffering in the postpartum. There’s a difference between Pain and, “I am going to be traumatized from this experience.” And so we do want to not have that.

[00:42:23] Gina: If you want to check out any of our online prenatal options, if you want to check out any of our online prenatal options, head to our website and mamastefit.com and you can use code STORY10 to get 10 percent off any of our online offerings, and you can bundle prenatal fitness and childbirth education together to save an additional 15 percent off, which is 25 percent off. So that’s a big deal.

[00:42:46] Gina: But yeah, so thanks so much for listening to this episode and hopefully you can have a comfortable pregnancy and not suffer.

[00:42:54] Roxanne: And this podcast is sponsored by Needed, a nutrition company focused on the perinatal timeframe that both Gina and I have utilized. Our mom uses it, our husbands use it, even our kids use some of the stuff. So if you want to check them out, you can go to thisisneeded.com and use code MAMASTEPOD to get 20 percent off your first order.