Skincare for Expecting Moms

Pregnancy is a rollercoaster of a ride. It causes all sorts of changes, both inside and outside your body. While you are pregnant, your hormones levels are affected, your blood vessels are under more strain, and you may experience more sweating. While some pregnant women develop a healthy glow, others develop acne, varicose veins, and athlete’s foot. There are even some special gestational skin diseases – reserved only for pregnant women – such as gestational psoriasis, which only come about during pregnancy, and which disappear completely soon after you give birth.

Here’s what you need to know about the most common skin afflictions that can happen during pregnancy, and how to reduce your risk of suffering from them.

Stretch marks

These are the marks that form as your skin stretches to accommodate your growing abdomen during pregnancy. The more your skin stretches, the more severe the marks can be, and so if you can keep from gaining extra weight (other than the inevitable weight gain from the growing life-form you’re incubating), then that can help. Having multiples can also increase the risk of developing stretch marks, but, if they were conceived naturally, there’s not much you can do about that! 

Some women, no matter how much weight they gain or how big their baby bump gets, will suffer more from stretch marks than others. “It’s genetic,” says Dr. Yuan Shan, Chair of the Department of Dermatology at Beijing United Family Hospital (BJU). “If our moms suffer from it, it’s easy for us to suffer from it too. It’s easily inherited.” Apart from asking your mom about her stretch marks, you can also learn about your own predisposition to them by thinking back to your pubescent years. “If you got growth marks from your growth spurt in high school, then you can more easily suffer from stretch marks,” says Dr. Yuan.

Other than avoiding excessive weight gain during pregnancy, you can also use plenty of moisturizer cream on your baby bump to reduce the severity of stretch marks. “This makes the skin softer and more elastic,” explains Dr. Yuan. The more elastic the skin is, the better it will be at bouncing back after it’s been stretched. The marks may be unsightly and a bit itchy, but they aren’t dangerous for the baby.

Rashes and itchy skin (PUPPP)

It’s not so uncommon for first-time expecting mothers in their third trimester to experience pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy (PUPPP): a very itchy and uncomfortable rash. One in every 150-300 expecting mothers may experience PUPPP – and this number jumps to one in 30 for women expecting twins. The bigger the abdomen – whether because of weight gain or because the mother is expecting multiples – the higher the chance of suffering from PUPPP.

It may sound pretty dire, but it’s not all bad news. Dr. Yuan says that, while PUPPP is very itchy, it’s not harmful to the infant. And there’s more good news: “We have a very good method to control it until delivery. And it’s amazing – after delivery, maybe one or two weeks later, there’s nothing.” To reduce your odds of contracting the disease, she recommends trying to not to gain too much weight while pregnant if you can avoid it. 

Athlete’s foot

This is one of the most prevalent fungal infections there are, and, for a few reasons, pregnant women may suffer from them more. For one thing, pregnant women can sweat more than they usually would, and for another, their feet may swell. These two things can make the insides of their shoes an ideal breeding ground for fungus. It’s also harder for a pregnant woman to scrub her feet properly, as the larger her baby bump gets, the more difficult it becomes for her to bend down and reach her feet.

To avoid growing fungus on your body while you are growing a person inside it, Dr. Yuan recommends doing your best to reduce sweating by wearing appropriate footwear and using baby powder to keep your feet dry.

Others

Because of the hormonal and metabolic changes that take place in a woman’s body when she’s pregnant, she may experience a whole host of other, less common, skin issues such as acne, melasma (chloasma), or psoriasis. Women with genital warts may find that their warts grow faster while they are pregnant. Some of these issues only present during the pregnancy and clear up soon after giving birth.

Most rashes and discomfort on the skin that women experience during pregnancy are safe for the baby, and in many cases, they will go away after the baby is born. “Not all skin problems need to be treated – we just want to improve life quality,” says Dr. Yuan. She also stresses that, if skin issues arise during pregnancy that may go away without treatment, then doctors will choose to let the ailment run its course – unless the ailment runs the risk of making the delivery more difficult.

So, what can you do to avoid these problems? Dr. Yuan’s answer is surprisingly simple. “We can choose some moisturizer, use baby powder in sweaty areas, and try not to shower too much,” she says. Because Beijing’s water is very hard, it can strip your skin of its natural defenses, and so showering too often can be detrimental to your skin’s health. You can rebuild your skin’s natural defenses with moisturizer, but Dr. Yuan still suggests showering once a day at the very most. She adds that “most moisturizer creams are safe for the baby during pregnancy. There is no need to use special pregnancy brands for moisturizer.”

Dr. Yuan Shan is the Chair of the Department of Dermatology at Beijing United Family Hospital. You can make an appointment with her by calling our service center at 4008-919191.

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