Brace yourself as the following are not your usual pregnancy signs and symptoms that you may ever have heard of. The common ones like morning sickness will not be mentioned here as pregnancy nausea and vomiting are considered to be quite ‘normal’ when expecting.
Instead, we’ll be talking about strange occurrences that nobody mentions such as mumnesia, drooling, hairy nipples and growing feet, among many other weird signs and symptoms.
Pregnancy has been likened to a rollercoaster ride into motherhood. The journey can be hair-raising for many as they experience some of the following. So, buckle up as we take you into the lesser-known ups and downs of becoming a mother.
Here are 13 weird pregnancy signs and symptoms you may not know.
Brain Fog (a.k.a. Mumnesia)
It’s called ‘mumnesia’ or pregnancy-induced brain fog for a reason. You become forgetful.
You can’t remember where you left your car keys or your mobile phone or what you walked into the kitchen for. Sometimes you feel ‘blur’, ‘spaced out’ and can’t concentrate or multitask like before.
Don’t worry. It’s those pregnancy hormones and probably your lack of sleep plus anxiety over your pregnancy ‘change of life’ that’s playing tricks on your mind.
The condition is temporary though and you’ll soon regain your focus after your baby is born, although some research says the brain fog may last as long as two years after birth.
Drooling from Loose Lips
You might notice that saliva drips from your mouth when you are relaxed or when you’re asleep. The medical term for this is Ptyalism Gravidarum or excess saliva production.
Experts say it happens because your body knows it is pregnant and the nerves that control salivation are more stimulated than usual. But then on the other hand, you might suffer from dry mouth instead, and feel parched all the time!
Oh, these pregnancy hormones. They can’t make up their mind!
Tasting Metal in your Mouth
Tasting metal in your mouth is another weird but common phenomenon in pregnancy. The medical term for it is Dysgeusia.
It is a taste disorder caused by pregnancy hormones (again) where even if you haven’t eaten, you get a sour or metallic taste in your mouth like you’ve been sucking on coins all day.
Dysgeusia also accounts for why you go off the food and drinks you used to like before. If you used to love drinking matcha and eating Nasi Lemak for breakfast, now they smell awful and taste even worse.
Dysgeusia can last for weeks during your pregnancy but trust that it will go off after a while. You can chew on sugarless chewing gum or brush your teeth and tongue often if you can’t stand the taste.
Gagging on your Toothbrush
Speaking of brushing your teeth, you might find that every time you put a toothbrush in your mouth, you will start to heave and gag. This makes brushing your teeth a struggle, especially when you are reaching in to brush your molars.
Sometimes the gag reflex is so strong, you will start to retch the moment you see a toothbrush in the bathroom. Gagging is connected to morning sickness which refers to the feeling of nausea, retching and vomiting in early pregnancy.
One way around it is to switch to a child’s toothbrush which has a smaller head to lessen the intrusion into the back of your mouth. You can also change the toothpaste to a milder tasting one.
Bleeding Swollen Gums
Blame it on progesterone but it is the reason why nearly 40% of pregnant women develop swollen, red, tender gums that bleed when they floss or brush.
This gum inflammation is called pregnancy gingivitis which makes your gums more susceptible to bacteria in plaque. Using a very soft bristled brush to gently brush your teeth may minimise trauma to the inflamed gums.
Nosebleeds
It is expected that during pregnancy, everything will swell. Not just your entire body and the gums but inside the mucous membranes of your nose as well. This is why you may also get nose bleeds.
Pregnancy is a time when your body creates 50% more blood and your heart works 30% harder to pump all that blood around. All the blood vessels in your body expand and swell to accommodate this new blood, including the ones in your nose which may rupture suddenly.
To stop the bleed, sit or stand up, lean forward slightly to prevent the blood from running into your mouth and pinch both nostrils for 10 to 15 minutes.
Frequent Urination and Leaky Bladder
Do you find you need to pee ever so often? You’re not alone. As many as 77% of all pregnant women experience frequent urination.
In fact, it’s one of the first signs of pregnancy and it is due to those pregnancy hormones increasing blood flow to the kidneys by as much as 35% to 60%. Understandably, you will need to run to the loo more often as you’ll have more urine in the bladder.
Later in the pregnancy, as the growing baby puts pressure on the bladder, you may leak urine every time you sneeze, cough, laugh, walk, run or exercise. Kegel exercises are said to help.
Snoring
If you’ve been complaining about your husband’s snoring, don’t complain so loud because it’s now your turn! Snoring occurs commonly in pregnant women and the main culprits are pregnancy hormones and weight gain.
As mentioned above, changes in hormone levels dilate blood vessels and cause mucous membranes to swell in your nose. The resulting nasal congestion increases when you lie down and this leads to snoring.
Some things you can do are sleeping on your left side (as this helps with your circulation), sleeping with a humidifier (to keep those airways moisturised so that nosebleeds are kept at bay too), sleeping with your head slightly elevated, and worse come to worst, sleeping with a nasal strip to keep your airways open.
Bizarre Breast Activity
Your breasts go through a transformation the moment you are pregnant.
From tingling and itching from the inside of your nipples to feeling fuller, heavier and extremely tender and painful to the touch, your breasts are preparing themselves to become the main source of sustenance for your baby for the next one year or so post-delivery.
Naturally, you will feel a tremendous number of changes. Your breasts will grow in size for sure, your nipples may protrude and the areolas may enlarge and darken as the surge of oestrogen and progesterone courses through your system.
Increased blood flow to the breasts may also make them look ‘veiny’ where you may be able to see the network of veins stand out clearly as if somebody had drawn on them with a blue pen.
Additionally, your breasts may also burn, usually under the right breast due to a condition called pregnancy pleurisy when the baby is pushing inside your body.
Closer to the last few weeks of the third trimester, your nipples may start to leak due to high levels of prolactin. It is the hormone which is prepping your breasts to nurse.
And then hair might start growing around your nipples. Hirutism or excessive hair growth caused by high levels of androgen may prompt your body to grow hair all over.
Typically, most of the hair will grow on your head giving you lush, thick tresses you can be proud of but unfortunately the hair will also grow in all the wrong places such as your face, your belly and even around your nipples.
Don’t worry. All that extra hair will fall off when hormone levels subside after delivery.
Emotional Damage and Other Wild Mood Swings
Have you become overly emo lately? One moment you’re feeling fine but the next, you might explode in rage or dissolve into tears and cry for hours on end.
Oversensivity, grumpiness, feeling introspective and tearful are all part and parcel of pregnancy.
You are easily triggered because your body is producing hormones at levels you’ve never experienced before and it’s driving you to both ends of extreme emotions.
Vertigo, Disorientation and Dizzy Spells
In the period films of old, actresses who fainted suddenly in the movie were usually pronounced by the doctor to be ‘with child’, as fainting was a sign of pregnancy.
Although we’ve come a long way since the 1900s, feeling symptoms of vertigo, lightheaded and dizzy spells in the first trimester is still a true sign of being ‘with child’.
Pregnancy causes blood pressure to drop while reducing blood flow to the brain. At the same time, progesterone dilates the blood vessels and increases the blood flow to your baby.
So, if you suddenly feel the room start to spin around you, here’s what you can do:
- Don’t stand up suddenly.
- Lie down and elevate your feet to increase blood flow to your brain.
- Sit down, bend forward and put your head between your knees, loosen tight clothing and breathe slowly until the dizzy spell passes.
Bigger Feet
Here’s one of the strangest phenomena of pregnancy—your feet actually grow in length and width! No, we’re not talking about oedema (water retention) in your feet but actual growth in length (and width) by about 20mm to 10mm.
Studies have shown that 60% to 70% of women develop flat feet during pregnancy. Weight gain is one of the causes.
The other is the hormone relaxin that relaxes the entire body’s ligaments including the cervix and the pelvic joints to facilitate the birth process.
However, it also relaxes the ligaments in the feet, allowing increasing weight from the top to bear down and flatten out the foot’s arch. Hence the feet elongate and widen. Research says the loss of arch height is permanent. And so is feet size.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or Hand and Wrist Pain
While feet elongation will not hurt you, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) unfortunately does.
Pregnant women may start to feel an uncomfortable tingling, burning, pain, and numbness in the wrist, hands, thumb and fingers (except the last finger) when doing work that requires repetitive motion.
CTS usually occurs towards the end of the pregnancy although it may start as early as the first trimester. It can affect just one hand or both.
The carpal tunnel is a passage between the wrist and the hand. The median nerve which controls some movement of the thumb and supplies feeling to the fingers, runs through it.
Fluid retention during pregnancy causes swelling which in turn can pinch the median nerve. Weight gain is a definite factor.
Studies have shown that pregnant women and mothers with CTS are those who have had high rates of overweight, obesity and excessive gestational weight gain.
Fortunately, it does go away when pregnancy related swelling subsides after delivery.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as medical advice from Motherhood. For any health-related concerns, it is advisable to consult with a qualified healthcare professional or medical practitioner.
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