You hear about lot of weirdo stuff that happens to your body during pregnancy. There are stories of women who claim their straight hair went wavy, their taste buds changed, they suddenly stink and need to wear deodorant regularly… I’m serious.
But the one thing that seems consistent across the board, that almost no pregnant gal can seem to avoid is their feet growing.
I went from wearing a 6.5 and occasionally a 7 to a 7.5 in most shoes. Yeah, a full size bigger it seems. And it has never made any sense to me. I get why my body looks different in every other aspect, but my feet? Why?
Today I figured it out. I found some science explaining why the hell our feet grow when we have a baby.
Well, actually they don’t grow at all, but they do, for sure, get bigger.
The incredibly simple answer is that the hormone that is produced by your ovaries and placenta that relaxes the ligaments in your pelvis so your baby can fit through, also relaxes the ligaments everywhere else. Like the ligaments in your feet.
The name if that hormone is called Relaxin. Kind of funny.. relaxing Relaxin.
The foot itself is not growing, your bones are staying the exact same size as before, but they are spreading.
A study done by the University of Utah showed that 60-70% of first time pregnancies end with larger feet – roughly somewhere between 2mm and 10mm bigger. And the damage? It’s permanent.
So yeah, there isn’t anything you can do about it.
I would be prepared to ditch your favorite pair of heels after baby an honestly, it’s a small price to pay for such an amazing gift. And we wouldn’t mind buying new shoes anyway…
Liz is a just a mom trying to keep it real about how little she sleeps, how often she gets puked on and how much she loves them. You can find her here every day writing about real-mom moments.
Leave a Reply