When it comes to pregnancy there are a lot of women asking how to prevent stretch marks. It is known that more than half of the women are affected by them during their pregnancy and they appear in the form of lines of different colors, depending on the natural color of the skin.
What leads to pregnancy stretch marks?
These lines appear because your skin has to stretch very fast when you are pregnant. While some of the women start having them during the last weeks of pregnancy, others develop them as soon as their belly starts to grow. In fact the stretch marks are tears of the tissue that makes up the skin.
The pregnancy stretch marks occur because collagen is separated from the skin and that is when the stretch mark appears.
They aren’t supposed to be painful or harmful, although they could be a bit itchy at the beginning. With time their dark color will fade a bit.
What could help?
When asking how to prevent stretch marks a lot of women think that they should be using lotions to avoid the marks.
Nonetheless whether you get stretch marks or not and their amount depends greatly on how elastic your skin is. This depends on your genetic makeup.
To know whether you will have pregnancy stretch marks you should ask your mother whether she had them. If she did then it is likely that you will also be affected. Luckily in these days there are many different products that are meant to prevent the appearance of the stretch marks.
If you are asking how to prevent stretch marks during pregnancy, you could look for the lotions that moisturize the skin, making it more elastic and thus preventing stretch marks to some degree. Nonetheless there is no official information supporting the theory according to which these products truly work.
For sure you have heard about women preventing the pregnancy stretch marks through rubbing the belly with cocoa butter. It is possible that the formula didn’t help with anything, but at least the baby gets a nice massage. Also this way women will know that they tried everything in their power.
The women asking how to prevent stretch marks should also know that one way to prevent the stretch marks is to gain the indicate amount of weight. Usually the doctors suggest women to stay in the range of 25-35 pounds. If you gain more it is more likely that you will develop stretch marks.
Although the pregnancy stretch marks can look quite bad after pregnancy, the good news is that their color fades in time and after a few months they will have a whitish color that is hardly noticeable. If they bother you, see a dermatologist who could suggest using some kind of topical cream.
In case you ask your dermatologist how to prevent stretch marks during pregnancy, he or she may tell you to use tretinoin cream. This can be used only after pregnancy because it could have some harmful effects on the baby. Such creams should be used soon after delivery, because the sooner you use them, the more likely they are to have an effect.
The truth about pregnancy stretch marks is that you also have to take into consideration breastfeeding. In case you breastfeed you should make sure to mention it to your doctor because some of the lotions could have an effect on your milk supply.
As you can see there is always a different answer to the question how to prevent stretch marks during pregnancy, you just have to know whom to address the question to.
