Pregnancy and Dry Skin

Right after you conceive, your body will begin undergoing a multitude of changes to prepare for your growing baby. While your body is making all of these internal preparations, your hormone levels will begin to change which can cause your skin to dry out.

Another thing that can cause dry skin, regardless if you're pregnant or not, is frequent washing or using a harsh soap or cleanser. So, you obviously can't help your hormone levels, but if you are one who washes your face several times a day, you should probably cut this down a little bit.

Another thing that will cause dry skin is not keeping your body hydrated. Your skin has glands that will release oil from time to time, but these glands won't work properly if you're body isn't hydrated. This also explains why frequent washing will dry out your skin as you are constantly washing away your body's natural oils made for keeping skin healthy.

Therefore, to keep your body hydrated, you will need to drink plenty of water during your pregnancy. Eating foods that have good fats in them will also help your body keep your skin healthy. These include avocados, nuts, fish and other similar foods.

Okay, above you have read about what can cause dry skin and how you can prevent (for the most part) those things from occurring in a natural way. However, there are still a few more remedies for treating dry skin during pregnancy. These include:

Use a Humidifier. While you may think the humidifier is something that only comes out when you're sick, it is actually great for keeping your skin hydrated. Just run it at night while you sleep for extra natural moisturizing.

Keep Showers and Baths Short. As mentioned above, you don't want to wash your natural skin oils away consistently. When you take long baths or showers, you are going to be washing these oils off your skin. Therefore it's best to limit your baths or showers to a maximum of 20 minutes.

Don't Use Hot Water. Yes, you can take a comfortable bath, but don't use excessively hot water. When you use real hot water, your skin pores will open up and release more of those natural oils, so it's best to keep your bath water lukewarm.

Use Safe Lotions and Oils: You can apply oil to your bath water to give your skin a little extra moisture as well as apply lotion to your skin after you bathe. It's important that you use lotion after you bathe or wash your hands as this will "lock" in your body's oils and help your skin stay healthy and hydrated.