It is a well-known fact that pregnancy stretches your skin. After delivery, many women notice stretch marks and loose skin around their abdomen. This is because pregnancy causes rapid weight gain. Anyone who experiences rapid weight gain is going to experience stretching of the skin. While most women are perfectly fine with the stretch marks they get from pregnancy, they are not okay with the amount of loose skin they have on their body. Let’s take a minute to understand how our skin works during pregnancy.
Skin is composed primarily out of collagen and elastin. This allows the skin to stretch and accommodate the rapid weight gain during pregnancy by expanding as your baby grows. While it is assumed that the skin increases only in the abdomen, skin also expands in the hips and back also. The following tips will help you deal with this excess skin that presents as loose skin after delivery.
Allow Your Body Time to Heal
The most important thing you need to consider when creating your plan to lose postnatal loose skin is that your body needs time to heal. After you have your child, you should not begin trying to lose weight right away. While birth is a beautiful experience, your body has just been through a lot giving birth, and you need to allow it time to regulate itself. This is why your doctor recommends that you limit physical activity for 4 to 6 weeks after birth. During this time, your body is recovering. Moisturizing can provide the elasticity your skin needs to return to its original shape.
Becoming Physically Active Again
After you have taken the time your body needs to heal, you will need to increase your physical activity to return to your pre-pregnancy shape. Exercise not only helps you lose the weight you gained during pregnancy, it also helps you reduce the amount of excess skin on your body. If you are interested in understanding the different postnatal exercises you should be doing, a site like https://www.ourfitfamilylife.com/postnatal-exercise/ is a great resource.
Maintain Your Water Intake
By maintaining your water intake, you are setting your body up to successfully reduce the amount of excess skin and weight you gained during pregnancy. It also benefits your baby because it increases the flow of breast milk. It also helps reduce the amount of water retention in your stomach, which allows you to return to pre-pregnancy weight much sooner. It is recommended during the postnatal period for a mother to continue drinking the same amount of water she did prior to giving birth.
Don’t Rush Yourself
You may be in a hurry to get back to your pre-pregnancy body, but keep in mind that it takes time. Do not rush yourself because your body is going through a healing phase that is very important to your health. Pushing yourself to lose weight too soon could result in postpartum complications that can cause serious harm to your body. Take time and enjoy your new baby and use the time you wait as the time to bond with your new bundle of joy.
