There is a reason that pregnancy is sometimes called a different state. Everything is different and you can expect both physical and mental changes. This is due to hormones, which are tasked with ensuring the baby develops properly and preparing you for childbirth and the role of a mother. What can you expect during these nine months?
It’s like a roller coaster ride. At one point you feel like the happiest person in the world, and then everything makes you cry or annoyed. Hormones affect us all our lives, but during pregnancy they bounce us from wall to wall. Due to the fact that many different hormones affect us during pregnancy, their effects are also varied.
Like on a swing.
Oestrogen has a big influence on the psyche, and during pregnancy it plays an important role in the growth of the uterus and during childbirth. It is at a high level during pregnancy, thanks to this we feel satisfied, full of elan and energy.
In contrast, our mood can be changed or even soured by progesterone, which makes us sad or irritable. But it is extremely important for our baby. At the start of pregnancy, it makes sure that the newly emerging life is kept in the expectant mother’s body. It protects the foetus from the autoimmune system.
Love at first sight
Oxytocin plays a crucial role during childbirth. Its job is to make sure that the baby’s birth is not so painful for the mother. It also makes you fall in love with your little angel at first sight. It is sometimes used in artificial form to induce labour. But if everything goes as it should, our body will make enough of it on its own. Oxytocin also affects the production of breast milk.
This is just a small sample of the main hormonal actors. But there are many more of them working in our body: for example, choriogonadotropin (thanks to which the two dashes appear on the pregnancy test) or relaxin (which adapts our body to the rapidly growing belly and helps during childbirth).
Therefore it is no surprise that such a hormonal mix can really throw us out of kilter. It is important to realize that mood swings and a greater sensitivity to things are completely natural in pregnancy and that the vast majority of mothers-to-be face them. It also helps when we know that fluctuating hormone levels have a reason and that they are there to help our baby grow. Therefore, try to see pregnancy as a unique time in your life, sometimes it is really difficult, but at the end of it the most beautiful reward awaits you.