Many expectant mothers find themselves snoring while sleeping after pregnancy. Most people don\’t take this seriously and think it\’s normal for pregnant women to snore. They don’t know that severe snoring can affect the health of both mother and baby.
Pregnant women are prone to snoring. This is due to the increased secretion of estrogen during pregnancy, increased blood volume in the body, and swelling of the nasal cavity and other factors, which make pregnant women prone to intermittent upper respiratory tract obstruction, causing patients to pause for days and seconds at a time. Pauses occur dozens or even hundreds of times per night.
Research found that 14% of women who snored during pregnancy had high blood pressure. When a pregnant woman snores, the pauses in breathing that can occur can cause blood pressure to rise and block the flow of blood from the placenta to the fetus. In addition to the risk of stroke or heart disease for pregnant women, it can also lead to a lack of oxygen in the fetus. For pregnant women, hypoxia caused by snoring can cause or aggravate pregnancy complications and affect fetal development. Especially in the third trimester of pregnancy, as the fetus grows, the pregnant woman\’s weight continues to increase, which will aggravate snoring and the contradiction between oxygen supply and demand in pregnant women.
According to studies in European and American countries, about 10% of pregnant women who snore will develop preeclampsia, while only 4% of pregnant women who do not snore will develop preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is a dangerous disease whose symptoms include increased blood pressure, swelling of the hands, feet, and face, and protein in the urine. All patients began snoring before they developed symptoms of preeclampsia, such as blurred vision. Pregnant women who snore severely also have high blood pressure. Maternal hypoxemia can lead to fetal growth retardation. Pregnant women with a history of chronic snoring and obstructive sleep apnea have significantly increased heart rates and signs of intrauterine distress. 7.1% of babies born to mothers who snored were stunted, compared with 2.6% of babies born to mothers who didn\’t snore.
Wang Yina, Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University
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Anti snoring
Weight control
Women who are planning to become pregnant should put the prevention of snoring, especially severe snoring, at the top of their priority list, the most important of which is weight control.
First of all, women must control body fat from the early stages of pregnancy. After pregnancy, you should weigh yourself frequently and increase your weight by 0.5 kilograms every week. Before term delivery, the total weight should increase by 9-11 kg. Secondly, if pregnant women gain weight, they should exercise moderately under the guidance of a doctor. Try not to sleep on your back during pregnancy. It is better to sleep on your left side.
If after all the above efforts, pregnant women still snore seriously, they should go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment in time. Do not take sleeping pills as they may affect the normal development of the fetus.