It’s completely normal to feel worried about how you are going to cope with the birth and with handling a new baby. Increased stressīeing pregnant naturally brings with it a lot of changes and extra responsibilities. ![]() Unfortunately, when you lie down it often makes the feeling of heartburn worse, so it can make it very difficult to get comfortable enough to sleep at night. These symptoms can all be very uncomfortable. It can also cause nausea, sickness, and excess burping. Heartburn can cause a burning sensation or pain in your chest, along with bloating and a feeling of being full. The NHS explains that this is due to, “hormonal changes and the growing baby pressing against your stomach.” You might also hear heartburn referred to as ingestion or acid reflux. Heartburn is a common complaint in pregnancy. This article explains that during pregnancy you have, “more blood circulating during pregnancy, which can make the tiny blood vessels inside your nose swell and lead to nasal congestion.” This can cause a runny nose, as well as snoring during the night which may disturb you and your bed partner. It’s also common to experience congestion in pregnancy. Your breasts can often become very tender and uncomfortable, as well as larger, which can make it hard to get comfortable. Trapped gas and other digestive changes such as constipation can be very uncomfortable, and this can often make it difficult to get to sleep at night. RLS is more common in pregnancy, causing an uncomfortable feeling in your legs and the uncontrollable urge to keep moving them. Other factors which can cause discomfort at night can include back pain abdominal pain round ligament pain (pain in the sides of your lower stomach caused by your expanding womb) leg cramps and restless leg syndrome (RLS). It can be difficult to get comfortable as your bump gets bigger, especially as you’re encouraged to lie on your side (we’ll discuss this more later) which might not be your natural sleeping position. General discomfort can make it difficult to drift off to sleep, as well as making it more likely you might wake up during the night. So while these hormones might make us feel more tired and in theory help us to sleep, they also change our sleep patterns which can result in reduced quality of sleep overall. Increased amounts of the hormones progesterone and estrogen during pregnancy change our pattern of sleep, resulting in less REM sleep. All of these stages of sleep are vital, so when our sleep pattern is disturbed, it can reduce the quality of our slumber. ![]() Our sleep moves in cycles, shifting between a number of stages within two types of sleep: rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM). ![]() However, did you know that the hormonal changes themselves actually change the pattern of your sleep? These hormonal changes can lead to the other symptoms we’ll discuss which make it difficult to sleep as your body prepares for the baby. Hormonal changesĭuring pregnancy, there are many significant changes in the hormones coursing through your body. Later in pregnancy you might find that twinges of pain in your back or sides, or the baby moving during the night, could be enough to startle you out of sleep. Whether it’s because you need to urinate more frequently or due to morning sickness, there are many reasons your sleep might be disturbed. There’s a good chance that if you’re pregnant, you are being woken up in the night far more often.
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