Acne on the face during pregnancy: what to do
First of all, the skin reacts to hormonal changes within the body. Often, pregnant women develop age spots or acne. Sometimes they are quite painful and are accompanied by a constant feeling of discomfort.
Reasons for the appearance
The main reason for this cosmetic defect is a radical restructuring of the hormonal background of the female body. However, there are a number of factors that aggravate this situation and contribute to skin rashes. Therefore, in order to get rid of them, you need to know why acne appears during pregnancy in order to exclude these very provoking factors.
The reasons may be:
- the amount of progesterone produced in the body, a hormone that activates the activity of the sebaceous subcutaneous glands, increases: the result is a favorable environment for the formation of acne;
- nervous experiences, stressful situations, fears of childbirth, tantrums, neurosis – any psychological instability and disturbed mental balance;
- malnutrition (a lot of fatty, spicy, salty foods);
- bad habits (smoking, alcohol abuse even in the form of a glass of red wine or a glass of beer);
- lack of fresh air;
- poor skin care (use of low-quality cosmetics, insufficient cleansing of skin pores from sebaceous plugs and other types of pollution);
- dehydration of the body (improper drinking regimen).
All this can provoke the appearance of acne during pregnancy, and acne can be observed on the face (especially many of them are localized on the cheeks and on the chin), back, and chest.
To avoid such a nuisance, if possible, you need to exclude provoking factors from your life, although it is almost impossible to influence the hormonal background during pregnancy and your skin type. However, a number of preventive measures will still help improve skin condition.
How to prevent acne?
If acne has not yet appeared during pregnancy, you can prevent acne, and then you can avoid this cosmetic nuisance or make it not so large-scale.
These measures would be good to carry out 1-2 months before conception and in the very first days and weeks of pregnancy, when the body is still being rebuilt, and the skin has not yet had time to react to it.
- Don’t forget to take care of your skin during pregnancy. Daily cleansing with a gel and skin tonic treatment, weekly cleansing procedures (soft scrubs and steam baths), the use of homemade masks – all this will improve the condition of the skin and prepare it for the upcoming hormonal changes.
- Limit the amount of fatty, salty and spicy foods in your diet. Avoid carbonated drinks. Eat more fruits and vegetables.
- Be outdoors more often.
- Review the set of cosmetics that you use: are they all safe and of high quality?
- Try to be less nervous: stressful situations will not benefit the skin during the period of bearing a baby.
- Drink more water: up to 2 liters a day.
If the rash still appears, you will have to go through a small educational program on how to deal with acne during pregnancy in order to somehow clear your face of an unpleasant cosmetic defect.
It is not a fact that you can get rid of them 100%, but at least the inflammation will not be as acute and there will not be as many of them as if you leave everything to chance.
How to deal with acne during pregnancy?
Traditional medicine offers a huge number of recipes for treating acne during pregnancy, but any of these remedies must be used with extreme care. The composition must not comply with aggressive substances that cause allergic reactions.
To exclude side effects and complications, it is better to test each remedy on the sensitive skin of the wrist beforehand. If no allergies are found, you can safely use skin treatments.
Most often these are masks and compresses for the face, but they can also be used to remove acne on the back, chest and other parts of the body.
- Masks based on green or black cosmetic clay, they should be applied especially thickly to those places where there are more rashes (usually on the chin and cheeks) – do it twice a week;
- you can also use strawberry, apricot, raspberry and grape masks made from natural berries: they have anti-inflammatory properties – they can be alternated with cosmetic clay masks;
- fruit peels;
- ice cubes from herbal decoctions: rubbing all problem parts of the body in the morning, this method is especially effective in eliminating acne on the chest;
- steam baths based on herbs to narrow the pores.
Traditional medicine is not always safe for expectant mothers, so it is recommended that before using any of the above recipes and anti-acne remedies, take a consultation with a doctor – an observing gynecologist, cosmetologist or dermatologist.
Do not use store-bought products and pharmacy preparations without the recommendations of specialists, especially if they contain substances harmful to pregnant women, such as:
- antibiotics;
- steroids;
- benzene peroxide;
- salicylic acid.
Of course, beauty is important for a woman in any condition, but in a position you need to think first of all about the health of your baby.
If it was not possible to get rid of acne, the fact that after childbirth and lactation they will become much less, and in some cases they will disappear altogether, should be reassuring.