Dealing with Breathlessness During Pregnancy

A lot of changes happen to the body during pregnancy. Some people for example, experience breathlessness during the first part of the pregnancy while some others experience it later. There can be various reasons for this problem, and the reasons why you feel breathless early in pregnancy will differ from why you feel short of breath in the final part of the pregnancy. There are also various natural remedies to deal with this problem. Since during pregnancy, it is better not to take medications without your doctor’s advice, natural remedies will help. Here are the reasons of breathlessness and its remedies –

breathlessness during pregnancy

Why do you Feel Breathless During Pregnancy?

It is often seen, that during pregnancy people feel short of breath.  This can happen while climbing a stair or so. Here are some reasons why you feel breathless during pregnancy-

  • When you are pregnant your body produces a higher amount of the hormone progesterone. As a result you tend to breathe deeply. Actually even if you are breathing at the same rate, there is greater pressure being exerted on your lungs.
  • Some people experience short of breath during the later part of the pregnancy. This is caused by the growing size of the baby, because the baby starts pushing the diaphragm and puts pressure on the lungs. This makes a pregnant woman breath first, though not deeply.
  • Also, when you are pregnant, your body’s oxygen usage model undergoes a change, because, earlier it supplied oxygen only to your body. As you become pregnant your body has to supply oxygen, both to you and to your baby. This is when the body is in the need for more absorption of oxygen, and at the same time becomes sensitive to carbon dioxide. This type of breathlessness can be caused by anemia too.
  • There are other reasons for breathlessness, such as weight gain, previous history of asthma, the position of the baby in the uterus etc.

Natural Remedies for Breathlessness during Pregnancy

Here are some natural ways to deal with the trouble of breathlessness

  • It is important to drink a lot of water and other fluids to stay hydrated. However, you should avoid tea, coffee, and aerated drinks which make you dehydrated. Also, there is tannin in tea and coffee, which makes it difficult to absorb iron from the food consumed.
  • Easting healthy during the pregnancy is important. Avoid rich and fried food, and concentrate on foods that are rich in iron such as spinach, red meat, eggs, and almonds etc. Also increase the intake of foods which are rich in Vitamin C such as oranges. These foods make the absorption of iron from food easier.
  • Exercise during pregnancy is important, but make sure you do not exhaust yourself. If you are really short of breath you can try yoga, which helps to solve this problem.

Thus, it can be said that breathlessness is a common condition during pregnancy, and could be kept in check, by some measures.

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