Sleeping Positions During Pregnancy and Rest Tips

Preg­nan­cy is a spe­cial peri­od in a wom­an’s life, filled on the one hand with joy­ful expec­ta­tion and antic­i­pa­tion of a meet­ing, and on the oth­er hand with all sorts of wor­ries and fears. There are many myths and mis­con­cep­tions about what can be done dur­ing this peri­od and what is cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly con­traindi­cat­ed. To date, the ques­tion is gain­ing more and more pop­u­lar­i­ty: is it pos­si­ble to sleep at this time, lying on your back or on your stom­ach, when you need to change your posi­tion and how this affects the baby. We talk about the cor­rect sleep­ing posi­tions dur­ing preg­nan­cy: what experts advise. Spoil­er: get used to sleep­ing on your side!

The effect of sleeping position on the body of mother and baby

How to choose sleep­ing posi­tions dur­ing preg­nan­cy? How long can you lie on your back? Gyne­col­o­gists are only allowed to sleep on your back until the 28th week of preg­nan­cy. Doc­tors say that sub­se­quent sleep in this posi­tion can adverse­ly affect the health of the moth­er and her child.

This posi­tion com­plete­ly trans­fers the weight of the uterus and its con­tents to the inter­nal organs of the woman. In addi­tion to incon­ve­nience and dis­com­fort, this is fraught with var­i­ous neg­a­tive con­se­quences with the devel­op­ment of quite seri­ous com­pli­ca­tions:

• at first it is man­i­fest­ed by pulling sen­sa­tions and pain in the lum­bar region;
• then there may be dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing and stag­na­tion in the work of the gas­troin­testi­nal tract;
• com­pres­sion of the infe­ri­or vena cava leads to impaired venous out­flow, as a result of which seri­ous mal­func­tions in the work of the heart and blood ves­sels and fetal hypox­ia can occur.

Sleep­ing on your back dur­ing the third trimester of preg­nan­cy increas­es the risk of still­birth, accord­ing to data pub­lished by the British med­ical jour­nal Obstet­rics and Gyne­col­o­gy.

The main reasons for not sleeping on your back during pregnancy

Obste­tri­cians and gyne­col­o­gists real­ly do not rec­om­mend late-term preg­nant women to sleep or lie on their back for a long time. There are a num­ber of rea­sons for this.

• Increased load on the spine.

Dur­ing the bear­ing of a child, a wom­an’s spine expe­ri­ences a tremen­dous load. Sleep­ing on your back does not remove it at night. The low­er back is espe­cial­ly affect­ed. Con­stant stress can lead to dis­place­ment of the inter­ver­te­bral discs, the for­ma­tion of pro­tru­sions and her­nias.

• Con­ges­tion of urine and inflam­ma­tion of the kid­neys.

When the expec­tant moth­er is in a hor­i­zon­tal posi­tion, the child seri­ous­ly com­press­es the ureters, retain­ing urine in them, as a result, inflam­ma­to­ry process­es can begin to devel­op in the kid­neys.

• Dis­tur­bances in the diges­tive sys­tem and increased symp­toms of tox­i­co­sis.

While the preg­nant woman is in a hor­i­zon­tal posi­tion, lying on her back, the fetus squeezes the stom­ach, part of the undi­gest­ed food pass­es into the esoph­a­gus, which is why the expec­tant moth­er may suf­fer from severe heart­burn, fre­quent belch­ing, burn­ing, bad breath and oth­er uncom­fort­able sen­sa­tions. Also, this pos­ture is fraught with a slow­down in the diges­tive sys­tem.

Com­pres­sion by the fetus of the intestines and inter­nal organs leads to con­ges­tion in the gas­troin­testi­nal tract and prob­lems with the stool. And decay prod­ucts that are not removed in time cause severe gas for­ma­tion and painful swelling. A com­pressed intes­tine also enhances the man­i­fes­ta­tions of tox­i­co­sis.

• devel­op­ment of hypox­ia.

Com­pres­sion of the infe­ri­or vena cava dis­rupts blood cir­cu­la­tion and can lead to oxy­gen star­va­tion of the fetus, which in turn is fraught with the devel­op­ment of con­gen­i­tal heart dis­ease in the child, the appear­ance of dis­or­ders in the cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem and heart mus­cle.

• Com­pli­ca­tions in the work of the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem.

If the infe­ri­or vena cava expe­ri­ences seri­ous pres­sure, then the nor­mal blood cir­cu­la­tion in the body of the woman in labor is dis­turbed. The heart mus­cle is under tremen­dous stress and strain. The expec­tant moth­er in this case suf­fers from a lack of oxy­gen, breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ties, dizzi­ness, arrhyth­mia, tachy­car­dia.

• Increased swelling and cramps in the legs.

Stag­na­tion of blood flow leads to the spread of numb­ness or swelling of the upper and low­er extrem­i­ties, the devel­op­ment of heav­i­ness and cramps in the legs.

All the described con­se­quences are not sys­tem­at­ic, they do not appear in every woman in labor and refer only to a long stay in one posi­tion. It depends on the indi­vid­ual char­ac­ter­is­tics of the course of preg­nan­cy, the loca­tion of the inter­nal organs, and the activ­i­ty of the fetus.

For a short peri­od of lying on your back, nei­ther the expec­tant moth­er nor the baby will feel any dis­com­fort. But the longer the term, the more care­ful­ly you need to treat this posi­tion!

Tips for a future mother: how to sleep during pregnancy?

Sleep is nec­es­sary for the body to ful­ly relax and restore qual­i­ty. For expec­tant moth­ers, it is espe­cial­ly impor­tant to even­ly dis­trib­ute the load on the body and ensure unin­ter­rupt­ed blood cir­cu­la­tion dur­ing the rest. To do this, you must fol­low cer­tain rules. There are a num­ber of rules for choos­ing a sleep­ing posi­tion dur­ing preg­nan­cy.

• Sleep on the stom­ach will have to be exclud­ed after 11 weeks of ges­ta­tion, on the back — after 28 weeks.
• In the sec­ond and third trimester, for a long rest, it is bet­ter to choose sleep­ing posi­tions dur­ing preg­nan­cy on the left or right side (on the left it is more phys­i­o­log­i­cal). This will avoid exces­sive pres­sure on the spinal col­umn, inter­nal organs, venous sys­tem, blad­der. In this posi­tion, unhin­dered blood cir­cu­la­tion to the pla­cen­tal zone is nor­mal­ized, which will pro­vide the fetus with oxy­gen and nutri­ents in the required vol­umes. With a trans­verse pre­sen­ta­tion, you should sleep on the side where the baby has his head.
• Dur­ing the rest, the upper part of the body (head, neck, shoul­ders) should be slight­ly raised.
• Change your body posi­tion peri­od­i­cal­ly. This will ben­e­fit the body, relieve con­ges­tion, cramps and numb­ness of the limbs.
• It is advis­able to use soft pil­lows, plac­ing them under dif­fer­ent parts of the body in order to ensure the most com­fort­able posi­tion for your­self. Spe­cial pil­lows for preg­nant women make life much eas­i­er. They are pro­duced in dif­fer­ent shapes and sizes.
• It is worth lis­ten­ing care­ful­ly to the actions of the fetus. In an uncom­fort­able posi­tion, when the child does not have enough oxy­gen, he will active­ly sig­nal his dis­com­fort by push­ing and turn­ing over.
• The sleep­ing area must be well ven­ti­lat­ed.
• If you expe­ri­ence any dis­com­fort dur­ing sleep, you should imme­di­ate­ly con­sult a doc­tor.

In the first trimester, due to the small size of the fetus, the expec­tant moth­er can sleep in any com­fort­able posi­tion. But after 12 weeks, in order to orga­nize a com­fort­able rest and prop­er devel­op­ment of the child, it is advis­able to adhere to the above rules.

Rest­ful sleep is extreme­ly impor­tant for the health of both moth­er and baby. Choos­ing the right pos­ture will help improve the qual­i­ty of a night’s rest, pre­vent the appear­ance of uncom­fort­able sen­sa­tions, and pro­tect against the devel­op­ment of com­pli­ca­tions.

It should be remem­bered that each preg­nan­cy pro­ceeds indi­vid­u­al­ly. It is impor­tant to lis­ten to your own feel­ings, the move­ments of the baby and choose the most com­fort­able posi­tion for two.