When you found out you were pregnant, you knew you were in for sleepless nights and countless diapers. But your female friends and family members who have walked the motherhood road before you forget to mention a few things, like bigger feet, a saggy belly, and little to no sex drive.
Here is expert insight into the post-pregnancy body changes you never saw coming.
Combine sleepless nights with the shock of motherhood and a drop in estrogen, and your sex drive takes a serious dive.
“It can take up to a year to feel like you are really back in the mood for sex,” says Hope Ricciotti, MD, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Harvard Medical School and a practicing obstetrician at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston. “You are so focused on your child and your family that you have little to no time for yourself, and that includes sex.”
You’re also exhausted, stressed, and have almost no opportunity for romance for the first few months after baby is born to even think about the act that conceived your child, she says.
Mix these with estrogen levels that bottom back to normal post-childbirth, and sex drops to the tail end of your priority list.
“Estrogen levels rise during pregnancy, and fall abruptly after you give birth,” says Silvana Ribaudo, MD, an obstetrician at Columbia Medical Center in New York. “The change in estrogen levels means a woman’s sex drive is probably pretty low. It rebounds, but it does take time.”
"Elephant belly" is what Elizabeth Turkenkopf of Albany, N.Y., not-so-affectionately calls her midsection after having twins. Granted, she had two babies in her uterus instead of one, but her belly change isn’t uncommon.
“A lot of women experience loose skin on their belly after childbirth, after their uterus returns to its normal size,” Ricciotti says.
The uterus increases about five times its normal size during pregnancy, she says, so the skin needs to stretch to accommodate an organ the size of a small watermelon -- or two, in Turkenkopf’s case.
The problem is that stretched skin might stay stretched out.
“Its not the same as stretch marks, which lots of women try to prevent using creams,” Ricciotti says. “It’s loose skin, and it’s cosmetic.”
Turkenkopf's doctor told her the only way to get rid of it was through surgery. Now you have one less surprise post-baby, albeit an unpleasant one.
You give birth, you lose your belly, right? Not so fast.
“After you give birth, lots of women expect that their belly will return to its normal size almost immediately,” Ribaudo says. “That doesn’t happen. In fact, it takes about 6-8 weeks before the uterus is back to its prepregnancy size.”
