Dizziness during Pregnancy

13-Dec-2011

Tags: Dizziness , Pregnancy

Suddenly you feel like puking, difficult to breathe or feeling like getting faint, don't worry these are the common symptoms during pregnancy. Your cardiovascular system undergoes dramatic changes: Your heart rate goes up, your heart pumps more blood per minute and the amount of blood in your body expands by 40 to 45 percent.

Causes

• The main cause of dizziness in pregnancy is due to the rising hormones that cause your blood vessels to relax and widen. This helps increase the blood flow to your baby, but it slows the return of the blood in the veins to you. This causes your blood pressure to be lower than usual, which can reduce the blood flow to your brain, temporarily causing dizziness.

• Dizziness is also caused by low blood sugar levels that may occur as your body adapts to changes in your metabolism.

• During the second trimester, dizziness may be caused because your growing uterus puts pressure on blood vessels.

• Women who are anemic or who have varicose veins may be more susceptible to dizziness than others.

• Lying on your back In your second and third trimesters, your growing uterus can slow the circulation in your legs by compressing the inferior vena cava and the pelvic veins.

• When you don't eat enough, you can end up with low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), which can make you feel dizzy or faint.

• Spending time in a very hot room or taking a hot bath or shower can cause your blood vessels to dilate, lowering your blood pressure and making you dizzy.

• Excessive exercise or anxiety can sometimes cause you to hyperventilate and feel faint.

• Some people get dizzy when they strain to cough, pee, or have a bowel movement.

Remedies:
• Avoid standing for long periods.
• Eat regularly in small gap throughout the day
• Avoid lying on your back once you reach the middle of your second trimester
• Avoid hot baths
• Wear loose and comfortable clothes
• Get up slowly from either sitting or lying down
• Take deep breaths
• Eat foods rich in iron

Call you doctor if:
1. Dizziness is accompanied by severe headaches, blurred vision, impaired speech, palpitations, numbness, tingling, or bleeding, or if you actually faint.
2. Early in pregnancy, abdominal pain accompanied by dizziness
3. Your dizziness is accompanied by vaginal bleeding and/or pain in your abdomen.

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