One night in July, a few weeks after my son was born, I lay awake, frantically scrolling through photos of my injured leg. When the pain from my ingrown toenail on my right foot was increasing and becoming unbearable, the internet promised to help me. The outrageously expensive Hoka sneakers I bought just a few months ago… prevent Pregnancy-related leg pain has diminished too much. To my horror, my feet had grown in size by half. Permanently.
Pregnancy books had taught me about some of the less-than-rosy aspects of new motherhood, like hair loss (for my baby and me) and uncontrollable crying (for my baby and me). I was prepared for my legs to swell temporarily during pregnancy. However, no one said that things would stay the way they were. Unlike the rest of my body, my feet did not return to their original size 9.5 after birth. Five months later, I’m now the frustrated parent of a big toddler and an even bigger foot.
Mom’s feet are not a niche condition.Research shows that from anywhere 44 to 61 percent of new moms have experienced persistent leg growth, and like me, many seem surprised when it happens. “Why doesn’t anyone talk about permanent changes in foot size after pregnancy?” one reddit user he lamented. That’s exactly what I think.
Temporary swelling of the feet (and hands) is a normal part of pregnancy, especially during the third trimester. Silvana Rivaldo, an obstetrician-gynecologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, said that excess fluid in the body tends to collect in “gravity-dependent areas,” causing significant swelling in ankles and toes. . This is not the same as Mama Feet. Mama Feet learned the hard way by wearing hokas for a long time after the shoes started to tighten.
After childbirth, the swelling of the feet subsides, but the structural changes in the feet do not. Like most other perplexing body changes that occur during pregnancy, persistent leg growth can be blamed on hormones. In this case, the hormone is aptly named relaxin. It relaxes body tissues and allows your growing baby to spread out and ripple. These changes are especially welcome in the pelvic area. Not so much underfoot.
If your pre-pregnancy feet were like a solid, structured ice cream sandwich straight out of the freezer, your relaxin-induced feet are like a sandwich left out in the sun. This hormone causes the ligaments and tendons in the foot and ankle to lose stiffness and strength, causing the feet to tend to splay out, says Alexandra Black, a podiatrist with Foot and Ankle Specialists of Central Ohio. He is a co-author of a recent paper. review She told me about the changes in my feet that come with pregnancy. Pushing the pregnancy weight onto them will only make the problem worse. “That leads to flatter feet, wider feet, longer legs,” Black said. According to several small studies on the subject of pregnant feet, average, about half a shoe size larger and 0.4 inch longer.Having this effect is a small consolation. most noticeable in first pregnancymeaning that the legs do not grow indefinitely with the offspring.
I wish I learned this in front Of course, I also bought Hokasu. If I had known better, I probably wouldn’t have bought so many Nike Air Maxes over the past few years, and I probably wouldn’t have bought matching white Jordans at the outlet mall during my honeymoon. I wouldn’t have proposed to her husband either. Now those beloved shoes have been banished to storage along with the hocus, and I have to pay for new winter boots, high heels and sandals.
Having to buy new shoes can be expensive, but it’s certainly fun. Mama Feet’s other influences aren’t. Shoes can be tricky, and even a slight difference in foot size can cause them to not fit properly. And collapse of the arch of the foot can be especially painful. Mine was as graceful as the arc of a leaping gazelle. Now the gazelle is face planted. That’s because the tendons on the inside of your ankle, which normally act like bungee cables to stabilize your arches, loosen during pregnancy. When this tendon stretches and flattens out, it can cause a “flatfoot deformity,” and “it’s kind of hard to reverse that,” Black says. Flat feet can cause the knees and tibia to over-rotate, disrupting the bones and muscles involved in walking and standing, and are a “major cause of pain” during pregnancy, researchers say. review I got it. Heel pain from plantar fasciitis, foot cramps, bunions, and nail problems are all related to mom’s feet.
If I had known about Mama Feet, I might have been more prepared. Black says some pregnant women and new mothers may use compression stockings to reduce swelling or purchase orthotics for added arch support. I said I thought it would be helpful. Unfortunately, none of my doctors (who were very good doctors, I should note) warned me about it. The same goes for the pregnancy books I read. what to expect when you’re expecting, only states that leg swelling is “normal” and “temporary.” I’m not the only one caught off guard by my newly enlarged feet.confused mothers Rich About pregnancy forumColleagues said they were “not warned” and “didn’t know this was a problem.”
Perhaps the reason foot pain is so often overlooked is that it is relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things mothers-to-be have to deal with, such as gestational diabetes and life-threatening elevated blood pressure. It may be from. Changes in foot size may not be considered worth discussing because they have “no bearing on the health of the mother or the baby,” said Leena Nathan, an obstetrician-gynecologist at UCLA Health Westlake Village. Ta.
But perhaps the reason Mama Feet isn’t talked about is because so much is still unknown about it. Although not everyone experiences pain and permanent changes are well documented, it is possible that the foot will eventually grow back to its original size. “It can take several years,” Rivaldo says, “but sometimes it doesn’t come back.” Nathan says it’s common to understand why some people experience changes in foot size and others don’t. He says he doesn’t understand. Even the true prevalence of this disease is not known with certainty because only a small number of studies have investigated this disease. But one thing is clear: there is a lack of research on changes in the feet during pregnancy. lack of research. Black said people are “hesitant to do research on pregnant women because they are a sensitive population.”
During my pregnancy, I was often shocked at how little was known about issues ranging from the trivial to the major, such as whether eating pineapple would induce labor or when the baby would actually be born. Ta. Walking, going up and down stairs, and having sex are commonly recommended to induce labor, but “it is difficult to establish whether they actually work or whether labor happens to start spontaneously at the same time.” is difficult,” says Dr. what to expect when you’re expecting. The pregnancy literature is full of ambiguity of this kind.Many times during my pregnancy, I wondered why I felt so bad during my pregnancy. Medieval, full of speculation, folklore, and hearsay. It’s 2023. Why are new moms still surprised by the growth of their legs? We’ve rarely found a satisfying answer to this question. But at least I found an ingrown toenail treatment that works.
