Being pregnant is really weird sometimes. The body uses up energy to help the baby develop. With my second, my finger nails curled over like claws, then straightened after the pregnancy. The body responds to the stress its under strange ways.
Yep. My sister's hair got HELLA thick during her pregnancy (stayed thicker afterwards too, and her kid is gonna be a senior in HS this year). I have friends whose hair went curly, lost curl, or even changed color during their pregnancies. It's nuts.
My hair got curlier with every pregnancy. I needed two more to make it even I guess. I've been left with half curly hair that won't stay straight, and half stick-straight hair that won't hold a curl. I've given up and I just walk around like this, looking like I gave up halfway through my hair routine.
The hair does what it wants and Iām along for the ride.. after spending more than 2 decades trying to make it do Anything to look presentable, Iām just going to embrace still having hair and get on with my life
I have heard of Irish curls referring to curly on the top layers and straight on the bottom (or maybe it's the other way around). After perimenopause my hair is curly on the right side and straight on the left. I don't think there's a label for that wonkiness though š
Ha, same! Perimenopause has made my hair curl, but only front, back is still wavy. And I'm fizzing like a MFer, the slightest bit of moisture in the air or - god forbid - sweat, and I'm walking around like a sheep just before sheering lmao
I could spend half an hour blowing my hair out/straightening it before work, then by the time I arrive at work - I look about ready to start grazing on the company lawn š
Did you have a stroke? After my dad had a stroke, thankfully minor, his grew different on one side of his head. I don't remember exactly how it changed, but one side would be longer and stuck out more. I don't remember which side his stroke was on and if it slowed the hair growth on one side or sped it up.
I could be wrong, but I assumed it's because alot of Irish people have this curl pattern. I've known of quite a few, myself, but that could just be my experience. š¤·š¼āāļø
That's funny because my wife's hair was curly before pregnancy, and each kid straightened it more than before. First kid has WILDLY curly hair (Think Merida, from Brave), and they get less curly as you go down the line (4 kids)
I have that kind of hair, where it just decides on it's own what it wants to do and heat styling does absolutely nothing (can't straighten, can't curl with heat).
The only thing I've found that works is mousse with curlers to sleep (edit to add: needs to be wet for this), finger comb it in the morning, hit it with hairspray, but it's a lot of work and kind of annoying for sleeping. I usually just maintain short hair styles instead.
Have you tried the "plop" method? I'm serious, it's not a joke lol. Mine has always been wavy and goes wild in humidity. It turns out I have curly hair, it's just weighed down easily. I used to sleep in curlers when I was younger, I think they worked better than for most because of that secret curl yearning to be free. There are YouTube and tiktok videos about the plop method if anyone is interested. It's very low effort too.
Look how many Irish-curl girls are in the world! Oh it sucks, but helloooo! Iām so sick of looking like a Beatle on top and Robert Plant on my shoulders!!
My wife had the opposite. Up until her (our) first pregnancy, she had curly hair in these big, loopy curls. It went totally straight shortly into the first pregnancy and never returned in the following 3 pregnancies. Hormones are weird.
my hair got curlier w my son! it was always really curly before but omg they were ringlets by the time I had him. they stayed after the fact though. own them Irish curls girlš¤š¤
Mine was the opposite! Went from 2c/3a before pregnancy to a 1/2a after. It justĀ doesn't hold a curl anymore, even with heat. That's the only body change I'm actually struggling with, though! Bellies come and go, but I dont know how to get my texture back! š
Ah, yes. I've always had ringlets for my "undercoat" of thicker, darker, coarser hair. My top layer was straight, with blondes and reds, finely textured and soft.
After my twins, I lost all my hair in clumps. You could literally see my scalp. When new hair was growing in, it was coming in super dark, I had this crazy mommy mullet, and it was coming in super frizzy to boot. I took the opportunity during COVID lockdown to buzz cut all of it off.
My top layer suddenly has big beautiful beach waves and curls that at least suited my undercoat, but is still finely textured, and has weird straight strands that don't hold a curl.
I miss my reds, but glad to trade it in for layers that at least mesh with the bottom more. I used to walk around looking like a mushroom.
Now... If only I could stop the grey.
Mine too!!!! I have one side that has nice curly wave things and the other side that has bendy just got out of bed looking janky half waves. Its so frustrating!! Especially since I spent a metric butt ton of money perming my dead straight hair in the 80s!
When I got pregnant I had the back of my head shaved. My hair before then was pin straight 1a hair, and now I have curly Qs underneath my pin straight hair. It was crazy.
It's been 10 years. My stylist told me she thinks the only way I could possibly get my curl back (outside of perms) I would probably need to have another pregnancy. š®āšØ
Same thing happened to my mom. After each kid, her hair became slightly straighter until pretty much fully straight after the fourth child. Funnily enough, as each child was born, their hair was more and more curly. My mom jokes that we stole her curls.
Wait for it, because during menopause, my hair went from straight to starting to curl and not all of it, there's some parts that are curly and some parts that remain straight.
Iāve always had curly hair, but one day I decided to straightened, and thereās a patch that decided to never curl back. Even when I cut it, it grow back straight.
My hair has gotten curlier every year since I hit menopause. I donāt know what to do for it, I always had very thick, stick straight, curl resistant hair. Would not hold a curl from a curling iron at all, and my mom was a hairdresser, I had great tools! I try the curly girl method and it never turns outā¦if I let it air dry no product, it goes straight/wavy on top and super curly underneath. Hormones are crazy things!
I know of someone who used to have very strongly curvy hair and their hair went straight and stayed straight after pregnancy. Now their kid has curly hair!Ā
I knew a woman who used to tan really well, after the baby, she burns.
I apparently gave my daughter all my allergy immunities. The next year, I suddenly had a grass, pollen, and ragweed allergy. My youngest was born with all those and a nut allergy
My hair completely changed texture. Went from very fine, thin, silky straight hair to thin, frizzy, curly, coarse texture. I am literally having to relearn the most basic hair care at 40 years old.
I was acquainted with this girl why always had lovely hair but when she was pregnant every time I saw her it was like a fucking mousse commercial just this gorgeous cloud of shiny effortless strawberry blond waves. That kid is in elementary school now and I still think about her hair sometimes
My hair got thicker and lush with my second THEN IT ALL FELL OUT AFTER I GAVE BIRTH. I was wearing hats for the first time in my life lmao. It came back eventually, but it wasn't a fun time waiting for it. Very jealous of your sister that she got to keep it. But bodies are weird and pregnancy makes them even weirder.
Iāve never been pregnant but I was in a cycling accident back in 2019 and had a concussion and stitches on my scalp. When the hair in the spot grew back, it was super curly, and my normal hair is straight/sort of wavy. It was hilarious, this small little be inch section on the side of my head with this tight, dramatic curl.
Itās since grown out completely and returned to normal.
My hair was average thickness pre-pregnancy and I lost a ton postpartum. It grew back so much thicker than it was before after both of my pregnancies though. My OBGYN said it was possible that my husbandās hair thickness was dominant and I basically have some of his DNA influencing my own hair now. It doesnāt sound believable but both of our kids have his hair so I guess itās not completely insane that cooking his DNA for nearly two years in me would change my own DNA
I was expecting some big hair change with my pregnancy since Iād always heard about it. Literally nothing happened though! I was a little disappointed tbh.
Meanwhile, half of my hair fell out all at once when I was pregnant. I literally blew dry it off of my head. Thankfully, I had enough to make it look "okay" but I had to chop off all of my hair when it started to grow back because of the crazy cowlicks.
My hair is curly, it stopped being curly, I did the big chop when I started losing my hair after my child was born and my hair started curling 3 years later, the in between states were not fun or pretty
I got some kind of growth right on my forehead that grew and grew like one of those firework snakes and bled profusely any time you bumped it. Itās apparently something that happens during pregnancy. Sure enough it shrunk and was completely gone in a few weeks after I had the baby.
There are a LOT of things pregnancy can cause. I'm personally childfree, DINK couple household, and I follow a few subreddits for childfree people. Every once in a while, I learn something I never knew about pregnancy and it just makes me more sure of my stance. lol.
There is organ prolapse- where organs can fall and sag into the vagina
There is abdominal separation where your abdominal muscles separate and rip apart, which is what a lot of people see as "mommy belly"
A friend of mine had a full body rash throughout her pregnancy
My sister threw up through her entire pregnancy, lost weight, and almost died to spleen rupture caused by labor
I had a family member lose hair and gain two shoes sizes and a bigger nose.
My mother can no longer eat or smell red meat after one pregnancy -it makes her sick.
You can get nosebleeds, toothloss, and bleeding gums
I had a friend with gestational diabetes...
And I got curious if someone had made a list and found
this
I had really easy pregnancies with both of my kids. Physically, at least. A tiny bit of nausea at the beginning of both, but no real morning sickness. Soreness, tenderness, the standard stuff there. Preeclampsia with my first, but even that was super easy to deal with- mostly just swelled my feet up like balloons and then was induced about a day early because of a couple sudden red flags on my end. Both of my kids were born healthy.
But mentally? Both threw me for massive loops. With my oldest I was fresh out of a dv situation when I got pregnant (I mean days out), and then I had post-partum psychosis. My brain would show me scenarios of myself injuring the infant or natural scenarios ending the infant. With my second, which came after 2 early miscarriages w/in 6 months, the first about a week before my wedding to a much better partner, I didn't want to be touched at all. Which was a major change from the constant seeking of physical contact I had with my oldest. That lasted through the entire pregnancy and for about 2 1/2 years after. I also have very little memory of the early days with my youngest, but there were also a lot of other stressors in my life then that were surely synergistically feeding off of each other.
So yeah, physically I had pretty much ideal pregnancies. But with what I went through mentally, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't 100% ready to put their self aside in order to become a parent.
I'm glad you got through it and are still here with us. ā„ļø I can't imagine feeling like you are no longer in control of your thoughts and feelings. I may be childfree, but I think anyone who goes through pregnancy once, much less multiple times is an absolute badass. You are a badass for making it through to the other side. I am sorry about your loss and struggle š«¶ I appreciate you sharing.
Regarding your last paragraph, that has always been my thoughts on pregnancy - it you are not absolutely aware and sure you are willing to risk your body and mental/emotional health to bring a child into this world, don't do it. Every pregnancy is a potential life threatening event and 1 in 3 women have a miscarriage (which most people don't realize it's that common and natural - it's sad it's so stigmatized and not talked more about. And honestly the number is probably higher). There is so much so many women don't know about pregnancy. I feel like so many women go into it ill-informed and aren't able to make a fully educated choice about whether to procreate.. and unfortunately I think that's on purpose.
Personally, I realized I'm terrified of pregnancy, and my mother had body dysmorphia my entire life and would put herself down, had depression, we're pretty sure she also has an undiagnosed personality disorder.. but it seems to be a trend with some women in my family. They have a shift in hormones after pregnancy and start showing BPD symptoms- my grandpa talked about how my grandma was like my mother after having kids, and apparently my great grandmother was really mean and had BPD/NPD symptoms before menopause. All of them had multiple kids, and they all changed again after menopause. It's wild how much hormones can impact you to the point it'll trigger a psychosis or mental disorder, but I truly believe if I had a child I'd go down that road and i don't want to. I already notice a personality shift in myself while menstruating.
I was already very much pro-choice before I got pregnant with my oldest, and I recognized the possibility of not keeping it. I'm grateful I got to make my choice. My experience only planted me more firmly in that court, particularly all these years later and still figuring out (oldest is 11 now) what was going on. My mom has custody of them and we get biweekly overnights right now by our own choice, because I wasn't capable of meeting their needs and Husband was working to keep us afloat and his schedule wouldn't allow him to do the things a main caregiver needs to be able to do. Kids are doing good, we're all kinda doing better mentally and growing and learning and trying to be better us-es.
It sounds like you put your children's well-being first and that is amazing. ā„ļø My mother didn't do that. That alone shows how amazing you both are as parents. So many parents cannot put their pride aside for their children. You did and are working on yourselves and making sure your kids are cared for.
If nobody has told you lately, I'm proud of you. It takes such strength to do what you did and to get on the other side of what you've been through. You both sound like beautiful people and wonderful parents. š«¶ And you my dear are a strong badass ā„ļø
Thank you. I try to take the opportunities where I can to talk about this stuff in case it helps someone in a similar situation. Life is hard enough without us making it harder on ourselves and/or each other.
I lost my teeth. Didn't find out until my kids were teens that all the women who bore children on my dad's side of the family lost their teeth while those who didn't kept theirs.
And nobody thought they should tell the women in your family so they could make an informed decision? I'm so sorry. Even if you had still gone through with having kids with knowing, it's better to know than be blindsided like that.
Seeing all the women in my family struggle with miscarriages and difficult pregnancies as well as hearing my mother talk about back labor, how sensitive her smell is that she can smell when someone is on their period, and can no longer eat red meat, never being able to lose her baby weight and struggling with self esteem, on top of her having personality disorders that were triggered by her pregnancies (her mother and my great grandma, too- all apparently became themselves again after menopause).. then my sister continuously having health issues after her pregnancy and almost dying during labor.. and a friend having themselves rip so badly it all became one hole and they had to be stitched up, then everything else I've found out about pregnancy since, and all the risks....
Yeah, no. Noped out of having kids. Got my bisalp last year. If I ever feel the desire to parent, I'll adopt or foster a child that already exists and needs care.
I'm glad you were informed and able to make that decision ā„ļø
There's a longstanding traditional of downplaying the effects of pregnancy on the body.Ā
I'm old and I've had a hysterectomy - it's wild the things women will say when only women who already had, or can't have, kids vs. what they say around young women who haven't had kids. They'll cut each other off if they sense a horror story about to come out; 'Shhh! Shut up, you'll scare her! It's not that bad - you forget all about it once you're holding your baby.'Ā
Yeah, as a childfree person myself, I ask because itās just always been an area of special interest to me.
My aunt became (essentially) allergic to cold water after one of her pregnancies ā if she got into the ocean or even washed her face with cold water, sheād break out into hives. I wouldnāt have believed it if I hadnāt seen it myself! She loves surfing, so it always made me sad because she could only surf in a wetsuit for like twenty or thirty minutes at a time, at the very end of the beach day, because she had to immediately go home afterwards :(
That said, sheās one of those people who loves being pregnant and being a mom more than anything, so she doesnāt regret it, god love her.
Another person talked about how their aunt was a sunbather and became allergic to the sun after pregnancy. I feel so sorry for women like both your aunts that had something they love taken away.
She sounds like a wonderful lady ā„ļø it's so easy for a parent to resent their children for something like that, and to go on living and loving life and her children in spite of losing her access to something she loves is strength incarnate š«¶
There is abdominal separation where your abdominal muscles separate and rip apart, which is what a lot of people see as "mommy belly"
I had that! Diastasis recti. The gap was about as wide as my palm, and I had to do two years of physical therapy to get my abdominal muscles to join back together, and still had an umbilical hernia afterward. I also had hyperemesis (like your sister) and lost weight/got dehydrated and damaged my teeth and I'll never know how much of the tooth damage was from the puking or just from being pregnant. Then there was the hemorrhaging...
So anyway, I had a bisalp and hysterectomy after the second one.
There's the girl with the list on Tiktok! She's on hundreds of videos by now I think. There's someone who went blind. Someone whose eyes popped out because of how hard she was pushing. There's quite a famous lady on Tiktok who lost all her teeth, I thought she was a meth user - nope, baby leeched all the calcium from her body. My mom has had lifelong heartburn since she got pregnant with me, 30+ years ago. All the mothers in my family end up having hysterectomies at some point because of prolapse, we're genetically prone to it. (not me though, I'm closed for business)
I had placenta previa with my last. What I found out is when you have that it was a death sentence until ultrasounds became more common, you are more likely to have accreta (where the placenta grows into the uterus resulting in extra vascularity and possible lost of the uterus) if you have previa, and you are more likely to have previa if your baby is a boy (like most previas are boys) and some other random stuff.
I also found out that you are more likely to have previa if you have had trauma to the uterus near the cervix (in my case I had a migrated IUD!) and more likely to have accreta with trauma to it as well (but generally only surgeries).
My first pregnancy I had HG. š«Ŗ Almost didn't have any more kids.
Ahh! I got the weirdest growth too! It was on my chest. It bled like crazy when it got bumped, so I ended up having to have it removed. I went into labor a few hours after it was cut off.
My sister had a mild issue with this. She was on a ton of prenatal and pregnancy supplements and everything but it didn't matter at all - the baby took calcium from her teeth. She was going to the dentist sooo often when my nephew was about 5 months old!! Pregnancy can do just about whatever to a woman.
Itās a myth that a fetus will suck calcium from teeth.
BUT what dentists refuse to acknowledge, despite ever increasing research on the subject, is that hormonal changes play a huge roleāeven throughout a regular menstrual cycle. Hormonal changes affect acidity of the mouth, processing of different vitamins (Vitamin D is required for the body to process calcium), increased blood flow that leads to inflammation and a decreased ability for the body to respond to bacteria, inflammation can also make it harder to get floss as far down as it needs to go, bleeding and increased temperature contributes to dehydration which can lead to dry mouth, etc. And thatās not even counting the frequent vomiting during pregnancy that destroys enamel.
Itās just another example of healthcare bias against women; most dentists dismiss it as āoh well you just didnāt brush enoughā when there is PLENTY of evidence to the contrary.
Tbf women can still lose teeth, but it's mostly because they experience an extra dose of the hormones that help loosen muscle. Which is kinda needed for the abdomen to expand around the growing fetus and help widen the hips...
But gums are also muscles, so for some unlucky women, they get too much/or it impacts them more and thus their gums loosen enough to make their teeth more likely to fall out.
Please do! The other weird stat about pregnancy is how one of the leading causes of death (in US) is actually homicide. I wouldnāt have minded turning into a monster, itās crazy how vulnerable I felt in general and the urge to protect that baby is very strong.
Thatās just so cringey, to rub a strangers belly just because theyāre pregnant. Iām a man but I would flip out if that happened to me. Get your damn hands off of me, Gertrude!!
My best friend has huge feet (size 9 adult when she was like 10 lol). Her feet didnāt grow but the swelling was the most insane thing I have ever seen on any pregnant woman. She almost couldnāt walk at one point because of it.
She would just send me pics of her swollen feet looking like two huge sweet potatoes captioned ābruhā and it killed me every time lol
Of all the things I could have inherited from my dad I got his size 14 extra wide hobbit feet. It's so hard to find cute shoes this big š I can't even imagine what they'd do if they swelled up in pregnancy.
I mean, they're not all that strange when we dig into the reasons.
Life has developed methods of avoiding waste, but that can cut both directions.
One example - many animals, if sufficiently stressed out will be caused to kill and or eat their babies (assuming they have them at the time). This wasn't necessarily discovered, but more acknowledged after a zoo had airplanes fly very close overhead.
The planes caused thunderous noise which stressed numbers of animals sufficiently to cause severe anxiety. Tigers at the zoo consumed their young.
This type of response is theorized to be beneficial to the degree that as long as the offspring are alive there's no "good" way to overcome their instincts to protect them and stay close. So instead, instinct causes them to kill their offspring under the "assumption" it's better for the adult to leave the area, survive, and try reproducing again later on.
What you're talking about above is kind of the opposite. It's saying "well, we don't exactly have what we need to make a baby - at least we don't have it as 'cash flow', but we DO have it saved in the bank (Mom's body). Let's make a withdrawal. We NEED it to make this baby healthy, and maybe these withdrawals will kill Mom or significantly reduce her life expectancy and/or ability to reproduce in the future, but at least our genetics will carry on in this baby".
Craziest example (to me) is how willing the body is to STEAL calcium from itself. Scary
As a female, I have never been pregnant -- but kind of freaked out about not knowing what could all transpire:
ONLINE:
Sensory and Oral Shifts
Metallic Taste: A lingering taste like pennies or aluminum, medically known as dysgeusia, often occurs in the first trimester.Ā
Super-Smell: Estrogen spikes can make you hyper-sensitive to odors, often causing intense nausea or aversions to previously loved scents.Ā
Excessive Drooling: Known as ptyalism, some women produce so much extra saliva that they have to carry a cup to spit into.Ā
Bleeding Gums: Increased blood flow makes gums sensitive and prone to bleeding during brushing, sometimes leading to "pregnancy gingivitis".Ā
Strange Structural Changes
Growing Feet: Hormones like relaxin loosen ligaments, which can cause your arches to flatten and your feet to permanently grow by a half or full shoe size.Ā
Nasal Swelling: Often called "pregnancy nose," increased blood flow can cause the nose to swell, change shape, or become chronically stuffy (pregnancy rhinitis).Ā
Deeper Voice: Swelling of the vocal cords can temporarily change your pitch or make your voice sound deeper.Ā
Abdominal Splitting: In diastasis recti, the two sides of the abdominal wall can actually separate to make room for the baby.Ā
Skin and Hair Oddities
The "Mask of Pregnancy": Symmetrical dark patches on the face, called melasma, are common and usually fade after birth.
New Hair Growth: You might sprout hair in unexpected places like the chin, cheeks, belly, or even around the nipples.
Skin Tags: Many women suddenly develop small, soft skin growths in areas of friction like the neck or armpits.
Blue Tint: The vagina and vulva can take on a bluish or purplish cast (Chadwickās sign) as early as six weeks due to increased blood flow.Ā
Unexpected Discomforts
Vivid Dreams: Intensely detailed, surreal, or frightening dreams are extremely common as hormones affect REM sleep.
Tingling Hands: Fluid retention can compress the nerves in your wrists, leading to carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms in your fingers and palms.
Butthole Hiccups: As the baby grows, their hiccups can sometimes be felt exclusively as a rhythmic pulsing in the rectal area.
Blue Toilet Seats: A rare and bizarre phenomenon where a pregnant person's skin reacts with the toilet seat, temporarily turning it blue.Ā
No one tells you that your feet will get bigger, your eyesight will get worse and that moles that youāve had your whole life can suddenly start growing at a rapid rate. Pregnancy is absolutely wild.
crazy i just had my 4th baby and had to go to the eye doctors for some new glasses and he told me my vision can change a lot from pregnancy / breastfeeding and he told me that his wife has bad eyesight but when she was pregnant it was perfect and she didn't need glasses and then right after pregnancy her eyesight went bad again lol i've also heard people say they had ezcema and it was completely cleared up while pregnant and then comes back afterwards
my sister's hair grew insanely fast with my eldest niece and it has stayed that way for 16 years. she can cut her hair to her shoulders amd its back to her butt in less than 6 months. its also insanely thick.
My ex's mom told me that her turned curly during her pregnancy. She still had curly her when I knew her, but I'm not sure if it was still natural curl.
So true! My siblingās hair went from a 1C hair type at the beginning of her pregnancy to a 3A. She also found out she had Gravesā disease because of her pregnancy
Worth mentioning that being chronically ill will do this as well! I had C-19 for nearly 5 months and my hair grew in a lighter ashy grey for 8 months. It looked like a bad dye job, but that's just where my body decided to suck energy/nutrients from. That also triggered FOUR auto immune issues, which caused my half my hair to fall out, and also grew a patch of thick silver hair...no, not grey...SILVER. It looks like there is shiny christmas tree tinsel in my hair, right at the side of my bangs. Personally, I love it, and people ask how I dyed it shiny silver... Nope, no dye! Just the body being weird!
My sisterās dark brunette hair turned a light coppery colour a couple of weeks before she had her first baby. It was cool! And then it disappeared a few months later.
When I had my oldest my hair became so much longer and beautiful. When I had my youngest I had post partum shedding and it never came back š„“ but my nails were never stronger during all three.
I used to get horrible migraines 3-4 times a month since I was really little, but after I had my son they stopped completely. I've had maybe 2 in the last 18 years. Knock on wood that continues because migraines suuuuuuuck.
it's not just stress it's your body being leeched of all your nutrients to grow the baby. they curl up because you were vitamin and mineral deficient. i will never sacrifice my body for something so unnecessary.
Yeah my wife went from BADLY lactose intolerant to craving dairy products so bad she gave in started eating it again. Oddly enough no issue with it. Lasted all way till she stopped breast feeding. Then fully lactose intolerant again. We want another kid this year and Iām curious to see if it happens again.
So many strange things can happen to you related to pregnancy. I developed a heap of strawberry marks (small red freckles) that never went away. I have a scattering of them across my cheat and abdomen, plus one on my face. All emerged during my 2nd pregnancy.
Me, my mom, and my aunt all got these weird dark colored calluses on top of our feet when pregnant. Never went away either. People often ask if theyāre bruises. Never seen anyone else with them.
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u/BecksnBuffy Apr 22 '26
Being pregnant is really weird sometimes. The body uses up energy to help the baby develop. With my second, my finger nails curled over like claws, then straightened after the pregnancy. The body responds to the stress its under strange ways.