Pregnancy Pimples: Causes and Treatments
People are all different. Some people go through their entire lives with so few pimples they can actually count them while others lost count well before their fourteenth birthday. Some woman who have acne problems find that their acne actually clears up during pregnancy while others who have had very few pimples during their youth find that pregnancy also gives birth to skin problems.
You may or may not be far removed from your adolescence and from those skin problems that plague most adolescents but adulthood does not, it turns out, make you ‘bullet-proof’ or, in this case, pimple-proof. The cause of those adolescent pimples was the hormonal imbalance that comes with puberty and follows you through the teenage years and now that you’re pregnant — there go those hormones again.
During pregnancy, exactly like it was during adolescence, higher levels of the hormone called androgen will cause the sebaceous glands in your skin (the glands that produce your natural skin oils) to get bigger and create more skin oil (called sebum). That increased level of sebum can combine with the thousands of dead skin cells that we slough off every minute of our lives and block your pores. Blocked pores create the perfect environment for a bacteria called P.acnes to go to work and cause an inflammation and a breakout of acne blemishes. (That P.acnes bacteria, by the way, is a natural bacteria that is always present in your skin — even the healthiest skin.)
It is a fact, but not a consolation, that about 50% of adult females, with or without the hormone imbalance caused by pregnancy, have problems with some form of acne. You can also take solace in the fact that those frequent pimple problems you experience during pregnancy are not only perfectly normal, but very common.
If you had acne problems during your youth that cleared up in adulthood or if you had a tendency to have a breakout of pimples just before your periods, you are most likely to experience some acne problems during pregnancy. If you are dealing with pregnancy acne you may find, as most woman do, that the worst of it will be during the first trimester. As the pregnancy progresses into the second trimester, estrogen levels increase and you may see the acne problem improve or even disappear.
Don’t take that trip to the drugstore just yet:
As bothersome as acne may be, when you’re pregnant you have to be very cautious, not only about what you put IN your body but about what you put ON your body. Acne medications, even the over-the-counter variety, are drugs and should not be used during pregnancy without the advice and consent of your doctor.
During pregnancy, the best way to keep your skin blemish-free is to treat it as gently as you would a priceless antique. Wash your face two or three times a day but don’t scrub it and don’t over-cleanse it — washing too much will rob your skin of its natural oil and cause those pesky sebaceous glands to overproduce to make up for it. Use a mild soap that is oil free and then rinse your face with lukewarm water to get rid of all the soap residue and just pat it dry with a soft towel — again, don’t scrub it. After washing your face use an oil-free moisturizer.
There are many skin care/cosmetic products on the market that are made for delicate skin — while you are pregnant, consider your skin to be delicate skin.
A couple other tips:
- Drinking lots of water (6 to 8 glasses a day) will help keep your skin and your body hydrated and moisturized
- Try not to touch your pimples and if you do, wash your hands to get the bacteria off your hands so you don’t make the problem worse by spreading it to other parts of your skin.
- Don’t pick your pimples — if you do you could wind up with acne scars. Acne goes away, scars do not.
- Acne Medications: Don’t use any acne medications without the approval of your doctor.
Some ingredients in some acne medications that can be particularly harmful during pregnancy are:
- Tetracycline (an oral antibiotic that has been linked to poor bone growth and discolored teeth in babies)
- Salicylic Acid (a common ingredient in over-the-counter acne treatments)
- Tretinoin (sold under the brand name Retin-A)
- Isotrentinoin (sold under the brand name Accutane). Accutane, used during pregnancy has been linked to birth defects, miscarriage and infant death. Read the U.S. FDA bulletin about Accutane at http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2005/NEW01218.html.
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