There are many physical and emotional obstacles to sleep in this stage. Anxiety about being a mom or about adding to your family can keep you awake.
Fear of the unknown or about the delivery can cause insomnia. Plus, there is the getting up every few hours to go to the bathroom. It also can be difficult to find a comfortable position in bed, especially if you are a former stomach sleeper.
At some point in their pregnancy, most pregnant women suffer from heartburn, which is a form of indigestion that feels like burning in your chest and throat. Heartburn can wake you up in the middle of the night and ruin a good sleep. Minimize the chance for this by avoiding spicy foods. Also, cut down on rich foods for dinner. Few things are more distracting than restless legs syndrome RLS , especially when you are trying to go to sleep. Despite the name, morning sickness can occur any time and is often worse later in the day.
Try eating a few crackers at bedtime and keep a stash in your nightstand in case a wave of nausea hits as you are trying to go to sleep. There are many ways insomnia can creep in and compromise your sleep time. Most medicines for insomnia should not be taken while you are pregnant. Instead, try journaling some of the things you are anxious about. Write down what is stressing you and try to let it go as you go to sleep. Also, stop drinking caffeine by early afternoon. Try not to take long naps during the day.
Doing any — or all — of these things can help ease you back into sleep at a reasonable bedtime. Not many things can wake you as quickly and painfully as a leg cramp. Sometimes called a charley horse, these cramps are usually a contraction of your calf muscle. Less frequently, they can occur in your thigh or your foot. These can plague you in pregnancy because of a lack of minerals, especially calcium and magnesium.
They also are more common if you are dehydrated. To guard against leg cramps, make sure that you continue to take your prenatal vitamin and drink plenty of water and other fluids during the day. The number of nighttime trips may be greater if your baby is particularly active at night. You might feel like you're working harder to get air. Later on, breathing can feel more difficult as your enlarging uterus takes up more space, resulting in pressure against your diaphragm the muscle just below your lungs.
During pregnancy, the body also makes a hormone called relaxin, which helps prepare it for childbirth. One of the effects of relaxin is the loosening of ligaments throughout the body, making pregnant women less stable and more prone to injury, especially in their backs. During pregnancy, the entire digestive system slows down and food stays in the stomach and intestines longer, which may cause heartburn or constipation.
These can both get worse later on in the pregnancy when the growing uterus presses on the stomach or the large intestine. Page 1 Finding a Good Sleeping Position Early in your pregnancy, try to get into the habit of sleeping on your side. Page 2 Tips for Sleeping Success Although they might seem appealing when you're feeling desperate to get some ZZZs, remember that over-the-counter sleep aids, including herbal remedies, are not recommended for pregnant women.
Instead, these tips may safely improve your chances of getting a good night's sleep: Cut out caffeinated drinks like soda, coffee, and tea from your diet as much as possible. Restrict any intake of them to the morning or early afternoon. Avoid drinking a lot of fluids or eating a full meal within a few hours of going to bed. But make sure that you also get plenty of nutrients and liquids throughout the day. Some women find it helpful to eat more at breakfast and lunch and then have a smaller dinner.
If nausea is keeping you up, try eating a few crackers before you go to bed. Get into a routine of going to bed and waking up at the same time each day.
Avoid rigorous exercise right before you go to bed. Popular links under Pregnancy First Trimester. Popular links under Baby Baby Month by Month. Popular links under Toddler Toddler Month by Month. Baby Products. Bookmark BookmarkTick BookmarkAdd save. By Anisa Arsenault. But women might be caught off guard by how worn out they feel in the early months of pregnancy.
Women know about morning sickness in early pregnancy, but many first-time mothers say they had no idea about how tired they often feel at this stage, Lee said. Similar to the advice that a pregnant woman should be "eating for two," health professionals should also be emphasizing the importance of "sleeping for two" during prenatal visits, Lee told Live Science.
One reason is that pregnancy can affect both the quantity of sleep a woman gets as well as the quality of it. As their body changes and pregnancy discomforts make it more difficult to fall and stay asleep, Lee recommended that mothers-to-be spend at least 8 hours in bed each night so they can get at least 7 hours of sleep.
Researchers have found that not getting enough sleep during pregnancy could affect a woman in ways that go beyond feeling exhausted during the day, being irritable and having poor concentration.
One of Lee's studies found that first-time mothers who got less than 6 hours of sleep at night were 4. Women need the extra rest, and they can't keep going on the same amount of sleep they got before becoming pregnant, she pointed out. Researchers are still trying to figure out the exact reasons why pregnancy causes a woman to feel so exhausted, Lee said.
But to some extent, pregnancy-related fatigue is hormonal, she said. In the early phases of pregnancy, progesterone levels start to increase.
Besides the influence of hormones, some of the sleepiness that women feel early in pregnancy could also be physiological as the uterus gets bigger and the fetus grows, coupled with pregnancy-related weight gain and fluid accumulation in the body, Lee said. These changes mean the body is working harder as the placenta forms to nourish the developing fetus, the blood supply increases and the heart beats faster. And emotional factors can also play a role.
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