Stretch Marks after Pregnancy

Even if you’ve followed our tips and advice for preventing stretch marks, you may have accumulated some during your pregnancy. Now you’ve got a young child to look after, there are going to be huge additional burdens put on you emotionally and physically. Despite all these pressures, it is still possible to deal with the stretch marks from pregnancy, which may help you in feeling more comfortable and happy with your post-baby body.

Don’t think that having stretch marks makes your body ugly: they are a sign that you’ve done one of the most challenging things that can be done. You’ve used your body to bring another life into the world, and it’s entirely natural that your body is going to be exhausted after such an experience. Think of stretch marks as the signs of what your body’s come through. Now your challenge is to heal yourself comprehensively and enjoy motherhood!

Eliminating pregnancy stretch marks is a great way of boosting your self-esteem and getting you used to having a post-baby body. Treating the stretch marks will help you feel more comfortable in showing yourself and your new baby off to the world. Luckily, treating the stretch marks is mostly a matter of common sense, and shouldn’t be too stressful for a committed mum.

There are simple ways to remove stretch marks from pregnancy. They are to increase your body’s hydration, moisturise your skin regularly with creams, and engage in an exercise program to tone and rejuvenate your body. Doing all these things in combination will help deal with the stretch marks, not to mention greatly improving your quality of life!

The first way to actively treat pregnancy stretch marks is by keeping yourself hydrated. This is especially important when you’ve got a young child, as you’re going to keep putting your body under stress, even post-partum. You need to get into a habit of drinking water regularly. This might mean you end up going to the toilet a lot, something that you had a lot of experience with in your pregnancy!

Drinking water lets your body constantly flush out any gunk that’s built up in it. More importantly to your skin care, keeping well hydrated lets your skin start to repair itself, speeding up the natural treatment of stretch marks.

You can keep yourself perfectly well hydrated with water. Don’t fall for any marketing hype and think you need to flavour it or buy pre-made drinks. You’re just increasing the dollar value of your urine. Sports drinks are only useful for you if you’re actively running in a marathon, and if you manage to do that just after having a baby, let me know how! If you get bored with drinking straight water – and I can understand how that would happen – you can flavour it with some lemon or lime juice to give a little extra tang. Try and avoid drinking coffee and tea in large quantities, as these will dehydrate you, sucking precious moisture away from treating your stretch marks.

The second way to treat pregnancy stretch marks is by actively moisturising your skin. Moisturising supports your skin’s healing efforts, assisting the fibres that have been stretched to repair. Daily moisturising over your stretch marks will allow them to heal faster, and they will fade more quickly than without external help.

Remember that some stretch marks will appear in places where you may not spot them easily. Stretch marks accumulate around where deposits of fat are stored. In addition to your post-pregnancy belly, you might have experienced some weight gain or shifts around your breasts, lower stomach, thighs and buttocks. So, while a good all-over moisturise once every two or three days is fine, it’s a good idea to moisturise these areas daily during periods when stretch marks are likely to develop. Get your partner to help if possible – rubbing moisturiser into their loved one is nearly always an enjoyable activity, and helps your partner feel loving and connected with you.

Finally, get yourself moving and getting fitter with an exercise program. Ease yourself into something gently, as you don’t want to over-tax your post-baby body. However, exercise, especially good cardiovascular workouts, has a strong effect on your body’s capacity to reduce and eliminate stretch marks. Increasing your fitness increases collagen formation, which clears up your skin naturally. Gentle resistance exercise like post-natal yoga also strengthens your core muscles and stimulates blood flow through your skin, further healing and fading your stretch marks.

If you have some stubborn stretch marks that are fading less rapidly than others, or you aren’t happy with the way your stretch marks are being treated, you may want to consider investing in some stretch mark removal creams or consider laser or cosmetic therapies. After all, it’s your body, and you want to feel comfortable in it.