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54 Horrible Things About Being Pregnant And Giving Birth That Should Be More Commonly Known
Pregnancy and childbirth are both core, foundational building blocks of, well, the entire human race, yet the truth is that many people don’t have the slightest idea what it looks like in practice. So to clear away the fog, we decided to find examples of things people don’t talk about as much.
Someone asked “What are the ugly parts of pregnancy that aren’t well known because people don’t mention them?” and netizens shared their stories. Be warned, a few of these are somewhat graphic. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote the most interesting posts and be sure to add your own experiences in the comments below.
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#1
A friend (now 82) used to be a maternity nurse. When I had my first, she told me they used to tell women it takes two years to recover from childbirth. The first year to recover from the pregnancy and then another year to recover from the first year of having a baby. We should normalize this today. When she told me this, it helped my mental health immensely.
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#2
Prolapse. Happened a few days after I gave birth. Hip and tailbone pain. All pelvic floor things.
See a pelvic floor physical therapist during pregnancy if you can. .
#3
Soooo many things! I carried my babies high, so my bottom two ribs are still pushed out more than eleven years after my last pregnancy. Also, for the last three months of my first pregnancy, I had a gradually increasing pain in my liver, but only because my baby's hip was sticking into it.
Your pelvis can separate early - I spent the last four months of my last pregnancy on crutches, wearing a girdle to keep everything together.
If you have hypermobile joints, you have to make sure you exercise before, during and after birth (but use an exercise programme designed for pregnancy and postpartum) to help hold everything together. When I was visibly on crutches, I was introduced to a group of moms who'd had similar problems in pregnancy. Turned out all of us had hypermobility, but not a single doctor or midwife had flagged it up. That also decided me against ever having a third kid, as all these women said that's when the REAL, permanent problems started (one of them was in a wheelchair, the others all had issues with their backs).
Your body will change forever. For me, my abs will never go back together, my back will never be right, my ribs are permanently in a different position, I have piles, I had to go to a Bowel Physio to stop me pooping myself after the damage during childbirth. Nothing made me feel more Pro-Choice than carrying and birthing two much wanted and planned for babies. Because no one should ever be forced to go through that if it's not what they want.
#4
Hemorroids
I had no idea about how awful the first toilet trip is after you gave birth. Now I make sure when anyone asks what they need in their hospital bag before they go into labour I tell them straight up: STOOL SOFTENERS.
#5
There’s a lot of stuff I knew about beforehand, like the nausea, abs splitting apart, etc. But I didn’t know I would get so many nosebleeds!
#6
About midway through my first pregnancy, I woke up every morning with my hands frozen in a claw shape. I would have to use the other hand to loosen my fingers, and then they would be fine. Sleeping with wrist braces helped, and it went away after the kid was born.
#7
- Gums bleeding like crazy during/after brushing
- Crazy heartburn, especially towards the end of the third trimester.
#8
You can see the baby move and it’s like an alien. Your belly will be lopsided with a giant lump that may be an elbow or a foot. And when they totally change positions it will look like an alien is trying to break out of your body.
It’s freaky. I never knew it would be like that.
And hormonal night sweats after the baby is born. For a week or two afterward I would wake up absolutely soaked. It was gross.
Daisydaisy 5 hours ago
I used to love lying in the bath watching my belly billowing and lurching around - very weird but kind of amazing too
#9
Pelvic pressure can be insane in the third trimester. I had to leave my job at 28 weeks because I couldn’t make the 15 minute walk to work without peeing myself and I was in the bathroom every 10 minutes after that. Every step felt like my bladder had a bowling ball dropped on it.
#10
I thought I was so prepared for pregnancy, labour, delivery, and the newborn phase. I couldn't understand all these stories about birth trauma - I thought people were just unprepared. I decided to labour unmedicated as long as possible to see how far I could go but I never excluded the possibility of having an epidural. I ended up getting one with my first and then it failed spectacularly. It worked beautifully for several hours and then just stopped. The contractions came back full force and I was in so much pain I started talking nonsense. Eventually they placed a second epidural higher and I was numb to my ribs. For the second pregnancy I was "better prepared". I thought this time I had it. I went for a consultation with the anesthesiologist several weeks ahead and our plan was to place the epidural as soon as I got to the hospital. Labour progressed quickly and my daughter was delivered. And then the placenta didn't detach. My room became chaos as the doctor and nurses got ready to take me to the OR. They upped my medication to try to get the bleeding to stop. I begged the doctor to try one more time to manually detach it. He was finally able to remove it. But I lay in the bed wondering if I was going to make it home to my two babies. So yeah. I was humbled twice. You can't be fully prepared. There are too many unknowns.
#11
The first 10 days postpartum were harder than my entire pregnancy and birth combined due to hormones/mood swings.
#12
The anxiety. The anxiousness of knowing at any second you could miscarry, especially at the end when kick counts need to be tracked.
There are so many things that can go wrong in a pregnancy, even those that get to the finish line having no issues up until then, and it’s tragic. After giving birth and working in Labor & Delivery, I don’t understand why home births are as popular as they are because people hemorrhage, have shoulder dystocia and a baby’s heart rate can just drop from the stress of labor, much more often than people realize.
#13
Severe food aversions! Everyone talks / asks about food cravings. I craved nothing. Food repulsed me. I could only eat a handful of foods (and I didn’t crave them, it was just foods that didn’t make me gag and I could keep down) but majority of food I could not even look at. I dreaded mealtimes. My husband had to make me eat most of the time. It truly messed with me. And if you don’t get it, you just don’t get it.
#14
Excessive sweating & body odor changes because hormones can make you sweat more, and some people notice stronger body odor.
#15
I was so tired the last month of pregnancy that I was only awake 2 hours a day. I could barely stay awake long enough to even safely drive anywhere. I would just fall aaleep, even while standing. I was told it was normal.
Huddo's sister 3 hours ago
I was told the second trimester would be the best as far as energy, but so far I have been even more tired!
#16
Post partum. I've had 2 babies and each time its taken me about 2 years to start feeling normal again. Idk if hormones, brain re wiring or what but I was a different person for about 2 years post partum.
Oh and everything being a "normal" part of pregnancy... oh you are exhausted, its normal. You're super nauseous - normal. Every concern gets brushed away with pregnancy and you can't convince me that's why mother and infant mortality rates aren't better than they are.
#17
Organ failure.
They say “oh, the organs shift to make room for the baby.” Then my cardiologist notes it’s common for women to have heart problems after the birth and they don’t consider it an issue until like six months after birth.
Also, pregnancy diabetes is not a failure of your pancreas but poor* management can have it become one. Or affect other organs.
Really, the body is under several types of stress and if it was stressed before it can really become an issue later in the pregnancy and postpartum.
#20
Throwing up and peeing yourself at the same time.
#21
The anatomy scan IS NOT JUST SO THAT YOU KNOW THE GENDER OF YOUR BABY.
And having a party that revolves around it is a terrible idea.
The anatomy scan is to catch serious problems if your baby happens to have any. And if your baby happens to have serious problems, it will be DEVASTATING to have planned a party that week.
#22
Super high resting heart rate for the last two months of my last, recent pregnancy - around 110 bpm most of the time! Felt like my heart was going to explode.
#23
Probably the fact that you hardly sleep for 9 months in preparation for a baby that also won’t sleep for the next 9 months 😭.
#24
The night terrors and vivid dreams.
No one told me I was going to dream of my house broken into, people cut open in front of me, or wake up in bed to not find my child, only to wake up 3 seconds later and realize I was only dreaming.
#25
The leg cramps. Third trimester hit and my calves would cramp at night so badly that I woke up screaming. My partner thought I was in labour but in reality I just couldn’t bend my legs.
Huddo's sister 3 hours ago
I already had restless leg syndrome, but it has become worse during pregnancy. I am drinking a combination of tonic water (about one bottle) and soluble magnesium every night and it's still not great.
#26
Diastasis recti.
Everyone says you'll go back to a version of your pre pregnancy body, nope, not true!
What isn't addressed is that your stomach muscles won't go back together after carrying a baby, oh and it'll get worse if you are pregnant more than once, and they may never rejoin. Oh, and this is actually really common?
Oh and it's a simple medical procedure to fix it by stitching the muscles back together, but the NHS won't do it because it's considered cosmetic, even though it's causing daily pain and I can fit my whole hand between the two sides of muscle?
And now we're at increased risk of hernias, which could lead to bowel problems.
And we've just got to cope with this for the rest of our lives?
I SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO FIT MY WHOLE HAND INSIDE MY STOMACH!!!!!!!!
Well that feels better to get it off my chest 😄.
#27
Breastfeeding makes your BO strong so the baby can smell you better.
Also you will be judged on every decision you make. And you will FEEL judged even if no one says anything.
Breastfeeding? Older people judge you. Formula feeding? Younger people judge you.
Cosleeping? You're putting your baby's life at risk. Sleep-training? You don't love your baby.
Naming your daughter Charlotte? Too boring. Naming her Aylin? Too unique.
No matter what you decide, someone's gonna have something to say about it.
Smeghead Tribble Down Under 2 hours ago
Nope. I couldn't care less what you do with/feed/name your reeking, screaming germ factory.
#28
The fact that some people may only bleed for a few days to 2 weeks after birth, while others of us bleed for 8-12 WEEKS with EVERY PREGNANCY post-partum and your midwife/OB will just go "huh" and not care in the least that you are just dumping out your lifeforce through both blood and breastmilk while trying to keep yourself and an infant alive.
#29
The after effects are lifelong. It does impact women's bodies in a way they will always have to manage.
#32
The psychological toll of it being inescapable.
I mean this on a variety of levels, but there were so many times I wished I could just be my old self for two minutes so I could have my agency back. I often got angry that I couldn’t do things I used to, but the anger had nowhere to go. Like, I just wanted to be able to rake the leaves. And it’s not like someone was there telling me I couldn’t, I just physically couldn’t. You can’t escape the pain and discomfort without potentially endangering the baby. The only way out is through.
#34
The fatigue in first trimester. I have never experienced a tiredness like that. My eyes physically hurt from how exhausted I was. I could barely move my body. Then the pregnancy insomnia starts and you can’t even sleep no matter how desperate you are.
I explained to my husband it was like you are hungover and then catch a 24 hour plane to London and you haven’t slept and you want to check into your hotel to sleep but you can’t you have to stay up for check in hahaha. You are so so exhausted.
#35
You can develop many different illnesses in the aftermath of a pregnancy. I developed a thyroid disorder in connection with my first pregnancy, which I will have for the rest of my life.
#36
From my wife:
Brushing your teeth becomes hassle (constant gagging)
going off certain foods
(my pov) horrific snoring
constantly being tired.
#37
Carpal tunnel agony in the wrists. I felt like I'd slammed my wrists onto a corner of a countertop.
#38
Did you know your growing child can pinch a nerve? I didn’t! The only relief was having my baby and it didn’t go away right away because the nerve had to heal 😮💨 imagine a horrible burning feeling on your belly for months. Ugh truly terrible!
#39
Your body stops feeling like yours. Everyone has opinions. Everyone touches your belly and suddenly your body feels like public property. It can mess with your head more than people admit. You can also feel lonely, even if people are around. Not everyone checks on you but they check on the baby. That shift can hurt more than you expect.
#40
Sciatica pains... MY LORD.... a Heavy, LOW, Strong Baby and there's nothing nobody can do about it.
#41
Healing from a large tear during birth.. those two+ months were the absolute worst. Feeling nothing but stitches when you clean it, too afraid to look at it, can’t wipe so you have to spray it with a squeeze bottle…all while sleep deprived af, sore, etc.
#42
I had to burp CONSTANTLY when I was pregnant. No nausea or other stomach issues, just little burps all the time. I don’t understand why it happened, maybe pressure on my stomach from the growing baby? It didn’t hurt, just annoyed the hell out of me.
#43
Delivering the placenta. It hurt worse than pushing my baby out. I can still remember the feeling of it getting ripped out of my body.
#44
Low blood pressure
It’s so annoying because there isn’t much to be done and it’s not dangerous. But let me tell you it’s nice to be able to faint at any time and you just feel unwell 24/7.
#45
I had a blocked nose constantly for the first trimester - it drove me nuts.
Constipation. I was in tears because I couldn't pass a stool, and I ate prunes, metamucil and drank prune juice. I still got constipated.
Can't sleep when you should be sleeping because the sleep deprivation is going to hit hard when the baby comes.
Post partum is rough though!
Huddo's sister 3 hours ago
The only symptom I had during the first two months was constipation. I already had problems with that, but it became so much worse. Finally I found psyllium tablets that helped.
#46
Symphysis pubis dysfunction. It can leave you unable to walk and if bad enough, it may be permanent.
Extremely painful and debilitating condition during pregnancy.
#47
1-3% chance of getting Hyperemesis Gravadarium, mouth tasting like pennies, skin changes (more moles, freckles, skin tags), increased heart rate (often double for some people).
#48
I had pupps....I had no idea what it was. When I went into labor the nurse was like we could have given you something for that. You mean I didn't have to lay crying on the floor of the nursery covering myself in diaper rash cream?
#49
I had hyperemesis (excessive vomiting) my first trimester, and the only reason I'm ok now is because i take 2 types of anti-nausea medications multiple times a day and unisom before bed. I lost over 30 pounds before finding a medication regimen that worked for me and went to the hospital almost 10 times before that due to dehydration. At the worst point I couldn't eat any solids for 2 weeks and had to be admitted because my potassium got so low do to not eating and vomiting, so i was like on the brink of death.
That, and like someone else mentioned there's the constant anxiety that i might lose my baby due to all of the health complications I'm having and the medications I've been taking. Im physically and emotionally exhausted and I cant wait for my girl to be here already 🙃.
#50
PTSD. Not just PPD, really, PTSD.
I've experienced giving birth and the first few days in the hospital in 2024. In December I've visited a family member in the hospital after giving birth.
I've almost crashed down and could barely hold back a miserable cry scene when saw the mother walking out.
#51
When I pushed during labor, I broke several capillaries in my eyes that made them bloodshot red for days afterwards. I looked demonic.
#53
I feel like post partum isn't talked about nearly enough outside of PPD and PPA.
Like I was a MESS post partum but not due to anxiety or depression. The hormone crash was WAY worse than anything I experienced during pregnancy and I was just so *angry*. Also once the baby is born, its ALL about the baby. People genuinely forget to ask how the mom is doing about a week after post partum
Also, the night sweats post partum are ungodly. I had to buy 2 extra pair of sheets because we couldn't keep washing them fast enough
AND clogged ducts. Those mfs hurt SO bad. I remember hysterically crying in the shower at 3am due to the baby being asleep but I couldn't get the clog out and was scared it would turn to mastitis.
#54
I didn’t know it was common to throw up when you are going into labor. I was seriously freaked out! Threw up the entire way to the hospital.
What do you think ?
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 hour ago
I don't have any human children and have no plans on ever having any, but I'm female and all my life I've been horrified at how high the maternal death rate still is in the modern world, especially for brown people. I am incredibly sad that with modern medicine, so many women still díe in childbirth or shortly afterwards. The rates of stillbirth and how many times OBGYNs eff up deliveries, causing the healthy child to díe during the birth process is also horrifying. To me, these are the most horrible and terrifying things about being pregnant and giving birth. The rate of maternal death should not be as high as it is. OBGYNs should not force women into having c-sections because the OBGYN wants to go home for the day. Healthy babies should not díe during the birth process. I extend all my sympathy, empathy, and love to anyone who has lost a child during pregnancy or birth or to anyone who has lost a spouse during childbirth.
Francesca Annoni 1 hour ago
Uterine cramps in the first few days after giving birth, every time I breastfed, in addition to n****e fissures.. and two bouts of mastitis that caused me to go to the emergency room and a fever of 40°... I wonder how I managed to have a second child.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 1 hour ago
I don't have any human children and have no plans on ever having any, but I'm female and all my life I've been horrified at how high the maternal death rate still is in the modern world, especially for brown people. I am incredibly sad that with modern medicine, so many women still díe in childbirth or shortly afterwards. The rates of stillbirth and how many times OBGYNs eff up deliveries, causing the healthy child to díe during the birth process is also horrifying. To me, these are the most horrible and terrifying things about being pregnant and giving birth. The rate of maternal death should not be as high as it is. OBGYNs should not force women into having c-sections because the OBGYN wants to go home for the day. Healthy babies should not díe during the birth process. I extend all my sympathy, empathy, and love to anyone who has lost a child during pregnancy or birth or to anyone who has lost a spouse during childbirth.
Francesca Annoni 1 hour ago
Uterine cramps in the first few days after giving birth, every time I breastfed, in addition to n****e fissures.. and two bouts of mastitis that caused me to go to the emergency room and a fever of 40°... I wonder how I managed to have a second child.
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