Why do i keep getting charlie horses while pregnant
Muscle Cramps During Pregnancy | American Pregnancy Association
Muscle cramps, sometimes called a charlie horse, during pregnancy are one of the common discomforts experienced by approximately half of all expecting mothers. The majority of muscle cramps during pregnancy occur in the lower extremities, particularly in the calves. A muscle cramp is an involuntary contraction of a muscle or group of muscles that happens abruptly and is most commonly experienced at night.
Symptoms of Muscle Cramps During Pregnancy
Muscle cramps and body aches during pregnancy may occur in any muscle or muscle group but is most commonly experienced in the legs. Muscle spasms that occur in the back or abdomen are also possible.
A muscle cramp or spasm is characterized by the following:
- Involuntary contraction or tightening of a muscle
- Usually sudden
- Accompanied by a sharp pain
You should consult your doctor if your symptoms occur frequently, are associated with swelling or redness, and are not relieved with traditional methods.
What Causes Muscle Cramps During Pregnancy?
- Overuse (carrying the extra weight from pregnancy or exercise)
- Dehydration
- Change in blood flow or circulation
- Lack of stretching before exercise or extensive use
- Nerve compression
- Lack of minerals (potassium, calcium, or magnesium)
If you experience muscle cramps frequently, they are probably related to more than one of the causes noted above.
How to Prevent Muscle Spasms While Pregnant
Below are steps you can take to prevent or reduce the likelihood of experiencing muscle cramps while expecting:
- Drink lots of water and fluids to stay hydrated
- Stretch your muscles well before exercise or extensive use
- Eat well-balanced meals to get the nutrients and minerals you need
- Take a prenatal vitamin that contains calcium, potassium, and magnesium. To avoid overdosing, do not take additional supplements without talking to your doctor.
Eating foods that are high in potassium, such as kiwi, bananas, or cantaloupe, is a great way to get some of the nutrients you need to prevent muscle cramps.
How Do You Treat Muscle Cramps During Pregnancy?
If you are experiencing a muscle cramp, here are the steps you can take to alleviate the pain or discomfort:
- Massage the muscle and nearby muscle groups to provide relief.
- Stretch the muscle.
- Apply heat with a heating pad.
- Take a warm Epsom salt bath.
- Apply cold with an ice pack to reduce the pain.
You may find that massaging the muscle with either heat or ice helps alleviate the pain more effectively.
If your muscle cramps remain frequent and do not respond to the above treatment, contact your healthcare provider. This could be a sign of a different medical condition requiring another type of treatment.
Want to Know More?
- Treating Muscle Cramps Naturally During Pregnancy
- Pregnancy and Leg Cramps
- Role of Vitamin B in Pregnancy
Compiled from the following sources:
Danforth’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Ninth Ed.
Scott, James R., et al, Ch. 1.
MedlinePlus, “Muscle Cramps,” National Institutes of Health, https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003193.htm
Mayo Clinic, Muscle Cramps, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/muscle-cramp/basics/causes/con-20014594
How to Ease Leg Cramps During Pregnancy
Pregnancy is filled with weird aches and pains, and unfortunately, leg cramps during pregnancy are no exception. Leg cramps (otherwise known as charley horses) can spring out of nowhere and stop you in your tracks, or even wake you up at night. And we know how precious sleep is! Here’s why you might be experiencing them, what you can do to ease the pain in the moment, and how to lower the odds you’ll have to deal with them again in the future.
In this article:
Are leg cramps normal during pregnancy?
What causes leg cramps during pregnancy?
Home remedies for leg cramps during pregnancy
Are Leg Cramps Normal During Pregnancy?
For the record, yes, you’re not the only one dealing with this.
Nearly half of all women experience leg cramps during pregnancy at some point, and they tend to spring up at night, according to the American Pregnancy Association. “It’s common—a lot of my patients report experiencing them,” says Christine Greves, MD, a board-certified ob-gyn at the Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies in Orlando, Florida.
While plenty of moms-to-be have leg cramps, the level of discomfort can vary, ranging from annoying to outright debilitating. “Cramps can cause women to result in loss of sleep, reduced well-being and work capacity,” says Jessica Shepherd, MD, an ob-gyn at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.
What Causes Leg Cramps During Pregnancy?
While you can technically have leg cramps at any point during your pregnancy, they’re more common in the second and third trimesters. The cause, however, is a little less clear. “We’re not really sure why leg cramps happen in pregnancy,” says Julie Lamppa, APRN, CNM, a certified nurse midwife at Mayo Clinic.
But she says there are some theories.
One is that it may be due to a build-up of certain acids (like lactic and pyruvic acid) that cause your muscles to involuntarily contract, leading to those painful cramps, Greves says. Pregnancy weight gain puts more work on your legs than when you’re not pregnant, and that can also increase your risk of cramping, she explains.
You’re also at more risk of becoming dehydrated when you’re expecting, which may also be a factor in those leg cramps during pregnancy, Shepherd says. When your body doesn’t have enough water or sodium, she explains, your muscles can contract and prompt that cramping feeling.
Home Remedies for Leg Cramps During Pregnancy
So what can you do when that familiar pain strikes? There are a few easy ways to help ease leg cramps during pregnancy:
• Flex your foot as soon as you feel the cramp coming on. “You want to point your toes up as far as you can bring them, like trying to bring your toes to your shin,” Lamppa says.
She recommends holding this position until the cramp calms down.
• Elevate your leg. Try this after you flex your foot to help move things along, Greves says. Even better, try stretching and then elevating your leg.
• Walk it out. This can be a little tricky if you’re having an intense cramp, but movement can help work it out, Lamppa says.
• Massage the cramp. Rubbing the muscle can help relieve the tension (and cramping), Lamppa says.
If you’re having any of the following symptoms along with leg cramps during pregnancy, call your doctor:
- Persistent throbbing in one leg
- Leg swelling
- Redness in your leg
- A leg that’s warm to the touch
These could be a sign of a deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a blood clot that develops within a deep vein in your legs, Shepherd says. That DVT can travel and cause a pulmonary embolism, which is a blood clot that travels to and blocks a portion of your lungs—and it’s a life-threatening emergency.
“A leg cramp should not stay painful,” Greves says. “Eventually, it will get better.”
How to Prevent Leg Cramps During Pregnancy
While leg cramps are common during pregnancy, there are a few things you can do to lower your chances of having them:
• Stretch your calf muscles. Stretching them out regularly (think: a few times a day) can help relieve tension in the area that can lead to cramping, Shepherd says.
• Stay physically active. Moving around can help work out the acids that can build up in your leg muscles, Greves says.
• Take a warm shower or bath before bed. This can help relax your muscles, Greves says.
• Drink plenty of water. This is important for pregnancy in general, but can also help lower your risk of cramping, Lamppa says.
• Take a magnesium supplement. There’s some evidence to suggest this can help with leg cramps, Lamppa says. Most prenatal vitamins already contain some magnesium, but you can talk to your doctor about whether you might benefit from additional supplementation.
If leg cramps are a regular thing for you, talk to your doctor. They should be able to help guide you on next steps.
Updated July 2019
Please note: The Bump and the materials and information it contains are not intended to, and do not constitute, medical or other health advice or diagnosis and should not be used as such. You should always consult with a qualified physician or health professional about your specific circumstances.
Plus, more from The Bump:
Safe Over-the-Counter Medications You Can Take While Pregnant
Exercising for Two: The Dos and Don’ts of Pregnancy Workouts
How to Deal with Headaches During Pregnancy
Dina (artist's notes): Novel. - New York: New Russian Word, 1979
%PDF-1.6 % 10 obj > endobj 70 obj /ModDate (D:20220813163108+02'00') /Producer (https://vtoraya-literatura.com/) /Title /Author >> endobj 20 obj > stream
com/ 
1600037 0 0 cm /Im0 Do Q endstream endobj 190 0 obj > stream Syphilis and pregnancy
An outbreak of syphilis in Russia in the 1990s led to a large number of people suffering from syphilis. This has led to the fact that this diagnosis has become not uncommon in antenatal clinics and maternity hospitals. In the antenatal clinic, expectant mothers undergo a blood test for syphilis three times, which allows timely detection of a fresh disease or a previously transferred one. Examination is necessary to prevent intrauterine infection of the fetus. Perhaps, for some, such a number of tests will seem redundant, but in fact this measure is justified: this disease entails too serious consequences for the baby. 9
If syphilis was detected during pregnancy... hospitals, immediately after diagnosis; the second, prophylactic, is for a child in a hospital or on an outpatient basis by the decision of the attending physician. If syphilis is detected in the first and second trimester of pregnancy, then the treatment is carried out twice: the first course - at the time of diagnosis, the second - at 20-24 weeks.
In Irkutsk and the Irkutsk region, only State medical institutions - dermatological and venereal dispensaries have permission to treat syphilis. In the treatment of syphilis in commercial medical centers, when they are liquidated or relocated, information becomes inaccessible to patients. This leads to the lack of the necessary clinical and serological control of patients after the treatment of syphilis for a certain time (from 6 months to several years), the lack of medical documentation and the impossibility of obtaining various certificates and statements about the diagnosis, treatment and test results. Therefore, the treatment of syphilis must be carried out in public medical institutions. If a commercial medical center was chosen or you moved from another city (country), then you must have and keep for many years an extract with a diagnosis (the word "syphilis" is not a diagnosis - the stage of the disease must be determined), the name of the drug that was treated , and its dose.
This can help other doctors deal with issues related to maternal and child health. I would especially like to note that for the treatment of syphilis during pregnancy, drugs are used that do not have a negative effect on the fetus.
If a woman had syphilis before pregnancy...
If the diagnosis of syphilis was made before pregnancy and a full treatment was carried out, then the risk of transmission of infection to the child is less, the more time elapsed after treatment before pregnancy. It is believed that 2-3 years after treatment, the risk of infection becomes minimal, because after 2-3 years it is most likely to guarantee a cure. The risk of infection of the child is determined by the doctor according to the results of the analyzes of the pregnant woman, and to prevent the occurrence of congenital syphilis in the child, if necessary, prophylactic treatment of the mother is prescribed.
Treatment is usually given between 20 and 24 weeks of gestation. By this time, the placenta is fully formed, so the treatment carried out after 20 weeks of pregnancy will be the most complete: the child will receive drugs through the placenta in full.
A woman throughout pregnancy remains epidemically harmless, that is, non-infectious. At the request of the pregnant woman, childbirth can be carried out in any maternity hospital and in any department (if there are documents confirming the diagnosis and treatment).
SEVERAL TYPICAL SITUATIONS FROM PRACTICE
• If the infection has occurred recently, a full course of treatment has been carried out, but the reactions are still positive and the woman has not yet been removed from the syphilis register, then during pregnancy tests are performed 1 time for each trimester, then there are analyzes performed three times, but in a larger volume than for healthy pregnant women, and preventive treatment is performed at 20-24 weeks of pregnancy. After birth, the child is subject to mandatory examination for syphilis.
• If the infection with syphilis occurred a long time ago and non-treponemal tests are still positive (and the doctor talks about the state of seroresistant after treated syphilis), then during pregnancy, tests are carried out 1 time for each trimester, and at terms of 20 -24 weeks of pregnancy, prophylactic treatment is performed.
When planning pregnancy in these situations, additional treatment is recommended before pregnancy. After birth, the child is subject to mandatory examination for syphilis.
• If the infection with syphilis occurred long ago and the non-treponemal tests are currently negative, then during pregnancy it is recommended to repeat the tests 3 to 4 times per pregnancy. In the absence of positive results in nontreponemal tests, treatment is not required. If there is even one positive analysis, preventive treatment can be carried out in the interests of the child. After the birth of a child, recommendations for his examination for syphilis are possible.
All doubtful cases are resolved in favor of the child, that is, additional treatment. If the father of the child has syphilis...
First, you need to find out when the disease began and whether the child's father received proper treatment. Syphilis is transmitted to the child only from an ill mother in the second trimester of pregnancy, and the presence of untreated syphilis in the father is dangerous to the health of the mother and child.
At conception, the child does not become infected from the father.
SEVERAL TYPICAL SITUATIONS FROM PRACTICE
• If the child's father has recently been diagnosed with syphilis and has not yet undergone treatment, then it is certainly dangerous for the health of both the pregnant woman and the child, and is subject to emergency treatment. Until the end of treatment, sexual relations should be avoided.
• If the child's father had syphilis at some time in the past, a full treatment was carried out and at the moment there are no positive non-treponemal tests (RMP), then the child's father cannot be a source of infection and is safe for the health of the child and the pregnant woman.
• If the child's father also had syphilis in the past, a full treatment was carried out, but at the moment there are positive non-treponemal tests, and more than a year has passed since the end of the treatment, then this situation poses a danger primarily to the health of the man, which may require further treatment.
It is not dangerous for a pregnant woman and a child.
Child care
A baby whose mother has ever had syphilis is monitored especially closely by doctors. If a child shows signs of congenital syphilis, treatment is carried out immediately after birth. At the same time, the baby is transferred from the maternity hospital to a specialized infectious diseases hospital. Children who do not have signs of congenital syphilis are observed during the first year of life: the first analysis is taken immediately after childbirth from the umbilical cord, then studies are carried out every 3 months. In the first analysis, the presence of antibodies to the causative agent of syphilis is allowed: these are antibodies received by the child from the mother (by the way, like antibodies to any other infection). In the results of subsequent tests, the amount of antibodies normally decreases. If this does not happen and the number of antibodies increases, this indicates that the child is infected.
