What to do if you have trouble sleeping during pregnancy

Sleep during pregnancy is very important. It not only affects your own sleep, but also the healthy growth of the baby. What we need to do is to find the cause of insomnia and relax ourselves. This will be more conducive to our own growth. Pay attention to our own physical health and the baby's physical health.

The number one reason pregnant women have trouble sleeping is that as the baby grows, the woman's center of gravity changes, making the optimal sleeping position and habits developed over the years no longer comfortable. You toss and turn in bed, actually always looking for the most comfortable position, but you always feel uncomfortable. Sleeping on your side is the best sleeping position for pregnant women, but if you have always slept on your back or stomach, sleeping on your side will make it difficult for you to adapt in the short term.

Secondly, physical reasons can also cause insomnia in pregnant women:

Abdominal deformation and weight gain can cause back pain, difficulty turning over, and difficulty waking up.

Frequent urination and getting up frequently at night. The arrival of the baby requires more blood circulation (30-50% more than usual), which increases the burden on the kidneys and causes them to produce more urine. At the same time, as the uterus enlarges, it compresses the bladder, reducing its urine storage capacity and leading to frequent urination. This is especially true if your baby is more active at night.

Increased heart rate. Because of the presence of the baby, the heart needs to pump more blood and beat more frequently, which makes your heart rate faster, make you feel uncomfortable, and easily wake up at night.

Shortness of breath. As the uterus enlarges, it presses on the diaphragm below the lungs, making breathing difficult. At the same time, the increase in blood leads to a greater demand for oxygen, which speeds up your breathing rate and makes your breathing deeper, causing you to feel uncomfortable and wake up easily at night.

Nausea and constipation. During pregnancy, your entire digestive system is affected. The appetite increases, but the digestion speed does not speed up, and some even slow down, leading to nausea, vomiting, constipation and other phenomena, affecting sleep.

In addition, there are other factors that can affect pregnant women's sleep. For example, some people have many dreams when they sleep, or even nightmares. At the same time, psychological pressure affects sleep quality, especially if some pregnant women lack confidence and worry about not being able to give birth smoothly, the baby being unhealthy and difficult to raise in the future, etc.

Best sleeping position

In the early stages of pregnancy, you should adjust your sleeping position to avoid being unable to change it later. Experts suggest that the best sleeping position for pregnant women is lying on your side with your legs curled up. This can avoid compressing the inferior vena cava (which has the important task of transporting venous blood from all parts below the uterus back to the heart and replenishing nutrients), and ensure smooth blood circulation.

Some people recommend lying on your left side (with your left ribs facing down) because your liver is on the right side and lying on your left side can relieve it from pressure. Whether you lie on your left or right side, follow your doctor's advice (who will decide based on your disease and physical condition) to reduce pressure on your abdomen and back.

If you tend to toss and turn during the night and sleep on your back, don't worry too much. Because turning over is the body's natural adjustment to find a more comfortable position, you have no conscious control over it. Because you always stay in the same posture, your body gets tired from sleeping. If you wake up easily like this, you can put a pillow under your back. Some people feel better when they place the pillow on other parts of their body, such as their abdomen, chest, buttocks, or between their legs. Some people use several pillows at the same time, or a small folded quilt or blanket. The specific method varies from person to person and you need to experiment.

The above is about the problem of poor sleep during pregnancy. I hope it will be very helpful to everyone. In many cases, the condition of mothers has a great impact on the health of the baby. Pay good attention to your own physical health. This will be beneficial to the baby's growth and protect the baby's physical health. Pay good attention to your own health issues.