hi I'm Monica Healy from pregnancy chat
we've been receiving a lot of questions
in regards to swollen tummies and when
I'm talking about a swollen tummy I'm
not actually referring to your baby bump
during pregnancy hormones play havoc
with your gastrointestinal tract these
hormones mainly progesterone relaxes the
smooth muscle of your body and so that
includes the smooth muscle of your
intestinal tract and this relaxation
causes your digestion to slow down the
good news is that the slowing down of
digestion allows your body to absorb
more more of the nutrients into your
bloodstream and that means more
nutrition for your baby
although these hormones are important
for baby the bad news is it causes
bloating and flatulence
now to alleviate some of this during
pregnancy we suggest that you you know
keep your bowels moving because
constipation can aggravate this even
further and so if you drink plenty of
fluids and include high fiber food in
your diet and make physical activity
part of your routine this can help we
also suggest that you change your eating
habits try and find out which foods that
you can and cannot tolerate you know
eliminating gas forming foods like
broccoli Brussels sprouts cabbage fried
foods beans onions garlic and carbonated
beverages these are just a few of the
foods that you may be consuming that are
you know increasing the symptoms of
bloating and and gas we also suggest
that if you start eating smaller meals
so that you're not overloading your
digestive system and just eat more
frequently and try to just relax and eat
slowly so that you're not swallowing air
chew your food really well so that
you've got a head start on digestion and
and don't lie down rate after your meal
either because this can cause the food
to reflux and it cause heartburn so I
hope that you find this helpful and
thanks for visiting our site and post
any questions or comments below and we'd
appreciate that thank you very much