"Mother's Apron"...ouch! anyone else? TMI & long...
Randy'sgirl52409
member
Hi all. I am wondering how many other's are out there with my problem....
Up until my 25th week or so my body was growing pregnant like in a way I was very comfortable with. I was gaining weight at a reasonable level, the weight was disbursing as well as could be and I was ok with the way I looked wven thought I definitely looked pregnant. I am not a small girl to begin with (size 14/16) but I wasn't huge before either and definately didn't have a big stomach by any means before pregnancy.
OK so 3rd tri hits and I notice that I begin to get a group of soft fat/skin that hangs off of the bottom of my stomache. The rest of my belly is nice and round and that bottom area looks like it's topped off with a "beer belly" that I never had before! It is quite unattractive... so the weeks go by and I notice this bit of hanging skin starts developing hard lumps of fat(I think) beneath it and it just gets worse by the week. Now the fatty area is a whiter color than the rest of the surrounding skin, the pores look larger than anywhere else on my belly, it is hard as a rock and feels like a rock if you grab it and hangs so grotesquely low from my already bluging belly it almost covers my vaginal area. It swings and is so embarrasing!
My main problem is that it has been starting to hurt from everything from bending over against it, leaning my belly up on a counter (to wash a dish or apply makeup), from simply wearing pants or underwear ect.... it is an area that covers a few inches in length and width just under my belly button to the pubic line. From my research I gather that I have developed what is to be called a "mother's apron" but I can't find any research about this hard fat under the skin. I know pregnant women develop fats stores and I am assuming this is where my body chose to do it. My weight gain still isn't too crazy and all else with my pregnancy has been great. Anyone else have this problem? If you do, do you have any insight for me? I have a feeling that no amount of weight loss will get rid of it and am already talking abdominoplasty with DH. TIA!
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Re: "Mother's Apron"...ouch! anyone else? TMI & long...
I have been a relatively small girl all my life until I got pregnant with my first baby and gained 60 lbs
I tried exercising, diets, eating healthy ANYTHING I could think of to help me lose weight. The only think I didn't do was starve myself and make myself throw up which is just plain disgusting. I lost 30 lbs at birth but seemed like a few pounds kept on adding on, and my weight would flucuate. This is the heaviest I have been pretty much all my life. I never lost weight before I got pregnant again, and have nocticed that I too have some of the skin hanging on the bottom of my tummy from my previous pregnancy. I'm not going through what you are, but just know I do have the skin hanging like you do!!!
Sorry for the whole story! lol I would definitely talk to your doctor about it. It almost sounds like fat deposites are building up in the area that is "hanging down". Like I said, just talk with your doctor and see what he/she says. Or even research maybe?
Not sure if this is the same thing you're going through but thought I would chime in....
At about 32 or so weeks I felt like my stomach had "dropped". It was very noticeable and everyone mentioned it. My stomach was definitely way lower than it was before - but, it was also not the same as the rest of my stomach. It was sort of lumpy and VERY sore and anything that touched it (pants, underwear, etc..) would irritate it and leave marks/indents. So, I just dealt with it and didn't think much of it. Now, I've had my baby and it was STILL THERE!!! All of the doctors at the hospital enlightened me and told me it's actually a fluid pouch. I retained so much water during my pregnancy and was swollen pretty much everywhere. It just never occurred to me that this pouch was also water. Now I am 2 weeks pp and the pouch is slowly disappearing. They said it could take up to 6 weeks for it to go away completely.
Not sure if this is what you are going through - but good luck!
Thanks LadyB! I absolutely can see how this might be water retention and yes it sounds exactly like the problem you have. I have been retaining water from pretty much the beginning of my pregnancy. my feet and legs blew up early on and it's jsut been terrible. Luckily my BP is good and no protein so no pre-e but still the swelling is so intense and painful elsewhere and now in my 3rd tri is in my arms and hands causing carpal tunnel and tendonitis. So I can totally see how this might be fluid mixed with fats deposits causing the pain I am experiencuing. underwear and pants are agonizing to wear and the skin/fat pocket itself gets "stuck" and pinched between my legs while on my side now or when I sit or roll over. So painful. I hope that's what this is and that it goes away, I don't care if it takes 6 months as long as the pain goes away....
thanks to everyone else for your help too!