News Moms Need

You thought when you got that pregnancy acne under control that you were good to go. And the overall itchiness of your stretching skin has been managed mostly by slathering on moisturizer every chance you get. So now what’s up with these reddish raised patches – poison ivy?!  It might be PUPPP.
 
No, that’s not a cute little puppy dog, which probably would be ever so much nicer.  PUPPP stands for pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy (sounds and is rather nasty) which are series of small, very itchy bumps that can show up on your skin during the third trimester. They usually appear on the belly, especially if you have stretch marks, but some women have them on their thighs, rear end, breasts and upper arms - again wherever there are stretch marks.  The good news is they go away after delivery and just because you got them in one pregnancy does not mean you’ll have them in another. Actually, PUPPP appears to be most common in first pregnancies.

Also good to know is that, while we don’t know what causes it, PUPPP is not associated with serious issues like preeclampsia, autoimmune disorders or problems with the developing baby. It’s just a nasty rash that’s likely to irritate the daylights out of you.

Any rash should be shown to your health care provider.  She will treat the symptoms. High strength steroidal creams used 5 or 6 times a day usually are good to start with because they bring it under control and prevent spreading. Once under control, a lower strength cream is commonly prescribed. Oral antihistamines like Benadryl or Zyrtec may be helpful with relieving itching at night and helping you sleep, but don’t take these without first checking with your doc. For severe cases, oral steroids taken daily may be necessary. If you’re not keen on these options, try oatmeal baths or pine tar soap.

If you had PUPPP, what worked to control the itch for you?

Photo courtesy of Logical Images, Inc.

Your baby:

By the end of the sixth month, your baby is about 12 inches long and weighs about 1 ½ to 2 pounds. Your baby’s skin is red and wrinkled. It’s covered with fine, soft hair. Your baby can kick strongly now - thump, thump! Your baby’s eyes are almost completely formed. Soon they can start to open and close.

Your body:

The skin on your belly may itch - creams may help relieve the irritation. You may see stretch marks - creams don’t really help with these unless they itch. Your back may hurt - avoid standing for long periods of time and don’t lift heavy things. You may feel pain down the sides of your belly as your uterus gets bigger. You may have constipation - drink more water and fruit juice. (Eat foods with fiber, likes fruits and veggies and whole grains.) You can still have sex, but stop if you feel pain or cramping.

Short of surgery, not really, no.  If your skin is not as elastic as some other women’s skin (you can thank your genes for that), this evidence of expansion and contraction will remain to some degree.  Many products imply that they can make these not so lovely lines vanish completely, but they really can’t. These marks are caused by tiny tears in the tissue that lies just below your skin and helps the skin stretch. There are products that will smooth your skin, moisturize and make the marks itch less, cover them and make them less noticeable, etc. but they won’t get rid of them all together.  Time is what will help the most, so save your money on expensive products.  They will fade from red or purple to silver, white or light brown (depending on your skin color) and may shrink a bit in size. 

The best thing you can do during pregnancy to try to avoid stretch marks, or keep them at a minimum, is to eat a healthy diet, take your prenatal vitamins, try to gain weight gradually and not in big spurts, moisturize your skin and drink lots of water.

My sister remembers thinking, a few months after her son was born, that her belly looked amazingly like a prune.  She had met a woman at the beach who’d had a baby the previous year and her belly was flat as a board without a mark on it.  My sister’s, on the other hand, appeared to be a deflated balloon with enough stretch marks to look like a map of the city of Cleveland. 

Over half of all pregnant women get stretch marks on either their breasts, upper arms, belly, hips, bottom or thighs.  Increased hormones combined with a stretching body can weaken the elastic fibers of the skin.  Stretch marks have more to do with the elasticity of your skin, a genetic gift (I got them, too!), than with weight gain, although large rapid growth spurts can take their toll.  Creams can keep the stretch marks from itching.  Within a year after delivery, they will fade from pink or red to white or silver, but they will not disappear.

Over time, the marks on my sister’s belly faded and became less noticeable.  But they still annoyed her, for years.  Then, when her son was about six years old and they had moved to a new town, she went to a new dermatologist for a check up.  When he looked at her abdomen for the first time he said, ‘Wow, you have kids?” and smiled brightly.  Suddenly these unattractive stretch marks became her badge of motherhood.  She became quite proud of them, which is a good thing because she got quite a few more with her daughter.

While you may end up with a couple or a carload, it’s amazing how a shift in attitude can make them quite beautiful.