Side Effects of Pregnancy

Have you ever heard of pregnancy brain or seen a pregnant woman start crying and say “I’m just so pregnant”? Did you think these were only symptoms of pregnancy and they wouldn’t last? That’s what I thought. I thought during pregnancy I would be emotional and forgetful, but then a couple months after my baby was born, most things would go back to normal. That didn’t happen, I had side effects of pregnancy.

5 Side Effects I Still Have From Pregnancy

I had a delivery nurse tell me, when I was pregnant, that it takes a woman’s body 7 years to fully recover from being pregnant and giving birth. At the time that sounded so long, but now I believe that a woman’s body will never fully recover from being pregnant or giving birth. Pregnancy forever changed the chemistry of my body and mind. This is my personal experience and side effects of my own pregnancy.

Emotions

Everyone gives you a pass when you are pregnant and start crying at a movie, but what about after. I’ve honestly had more high wire emotions since giving birth than I ever did when I was pregnant. Part of it has to do with the hormones from breastfeeding and part of it is the change my entire body has gone through. Over all I feel like a more emotional person then before I had a baby. Before having a baby I barely felt the need to cry and now I find myself tearing up about everything.

Forgetfulness

Another topic that people constantly talk about when they are pregnant is “pregnancy brain” but I never got my brain back. I had my mom tell me that “breastfeeding brain” is worse and I found that to be so true. It has been a couple months since I stopped breastfeeding yet I still have a hard time remembering small things. If it is going to be remembered it has to be written down.

Keen Sense of Smell

The whole time I was pregnant I could smell everything in the kitchen. It would make me feel happy or make me feel sick. This sensation still hasn’t gone away. Whenever there is seafood in my kitchen or eggs cooking, I feel my stomach start to churn. My nose picks up on smells so much easier now then before I was pregnant.

Body Odor

I used to play college basketball, so I know what it means to sweat and what my body smelled like. Pregnancy brought in another level of body odor that I hadn’t had before. But that didn’t even compare to the body odor my arm pits produced once I had Baby T. 16 months after giving birth and my body odor still smells way worse then it ever did before. Just like the emotional side effects I think this has to do with the hormonal changes in my body.

Numbness

This is a side effect of pregnancy that I didn’t hear many people talk about. While pregnant if my arm or leg was bent wrong while sleeping I would wake up with a completely dead hand or foot (seriously a scary feeling experiencing it for the first time). My midwife explained it to me that because I was pregnant my body was pumping double the blood so it is more common for the blood circulation to be cut off. Well my body is no longer pumping double the amount of blood, but my hand still goes numb extremely easily and I still have to be careful about the position that I sleep in, so I don’t wake up with a limp hand.

Pregnancy, giving birth and everything after is unique to each individual woman. I do believe that every woman experiences changes during pregnancy that they are still experiencing years after giving birth. Side effects of pregnancy (aside of ppd) is not a topic I hear about nor things I expected to happen to me. I definitely see my mom and all women through a different lens because of my experience. The woman’s body is seriously amazing.

Have you experienced any side effects of pregnancy?