PREGNANCY STRETCH MARKS

When I first learned I was pregnant, stretch marks was one of the very first things that came to mind. I mean, that’s mostly what I hear from people who have been on the pregnant road. When you join groups on Facebook or google about pregnancy, it’s impossible not to come across this topic.

Thankfully, I had existing oils/ salves at home that were part of the recommended brands in forums. You can find that post HERE.

Apart from that, here are other tips I found from other women:

OTHER BRANDS: Clarins Tonic Oil, Mederma, Bio Oil, Mama Bees Belly Butter, Earth Mama Angel Baby Stretch Oil
OTHER TRICKS: It’s not the oil but how much you put (2-3 times a day), or massage the oil for 10-15 minutes | Apply Vitamin E directly to your belly | Use Coconut Oil or Cocoa Butter | Use Castor Oil | Use Argan Oil | Use Olive Oil | Use Mineral Oil | Use Rosehip Oil + Jojoba Oil + Vitamin E

My tummy was doing pretty well with oil/salve application once or twice a day, until I reached my sixth or seventh month. Suddenly, they appeared. First in small batches, and later on, into tiger-like marks. Even with doubling the amount of oil I was putting (and massaging it longer each application), they just kept on multiplying.

Here’s an explanation for it from THIS page:

Stretch marks often occur during the later stages of pregnancy, affecting about eight out of 10 pregnant women. Whether or not you’ll get stretch marks depends on your skin type and how elastic it is.

During pregnancy, hormones are produced that soften the ligaments in your pelvis so they’re more flexible when you give birth. Ligaments are strong bands of tissue that connect joints. However, the hormones also soften the fibres in your skin, making it prone to stretch marks.

As your baby grows and your skin stretches, you may get stretch marks on your tummy. You may also develop them on your thighs and breasts as they get bigger. Stretch marks usually fade and become less noticeable after childbirth, but they don’t always disappear completely.

PS: Rapid weight gain or weight loss are also contributors to stretch marks. In my case, my weight gain was very gradual throughout my pregnancy. There are times when I wouldn’t even gain, so this was not the case for me.

After reading this, I realized a lot of things:

They will fade eventually. They won’t be gone completely, but they will not be red forever.
If you really want them gone, you can go for treatments. Luminisce Holistic Skin Invasions (the clinic I go to for facials) for one offers a treatment for stretch mark removal (Not exactly sure what they do, though). Or you can try the non-invasive creams / lotions available in commercial markets to help reduce the marks.
More importantly, I realized that there are other important things worth focusing on this pregnancy than how to avoid stretch marks. I would rather focus on things I personally feel must be done during pregnancy like reading up for childbirth preparation and newborn care, working out to keep me mobile throughout my pregnancy, and researching different views and parenting styles to help me with my journey to motherhood. It would be great if I can also keep the stretch marks out while doing all three, but really, if I had to make a choice, I now realize I’d still go for the latter choices than focusing on one physical aspect.

And then one day, I saw THIS VIDEO shared on Facebook (if you don’t have Facebook, you can read THIS instead)! I was obviously in tears after watching the video, and then came more realizations:

My stretch marks are marks of my victory – of carrying a child for many months and succeeding in it!
My stretch marks are beautiful reminders of my journey to getting the greatest gift of my life!

So, for our maternity/paternity shoot, I specifically asked our photographer Jamie to please take a photo of my stretch marks. To be honest, I was not so sure about posting this because I know many people will not see the “beauty” in it, but I do now, and personally, I don’t mind spreading the beauty I see around.