Early Signs of Pregnancy

Early Signs of Pregnancy

Am I pregnant? Am I experiencing the early signs of pregnancy? How can I be sure?

When you are wondering if you are pregnant, many things can go through your mind. Regardless is this was a planned pregnancy or an unplanned one, the quicker you find out if you are pregnant, the better it will be for you and your baby.

Perhaps the quickest way to find out if you are pregnant, is by taking a home pregnancy test. While most of them are extremely accurate, mistakes can occur. If your home pregnancy test came back negative, there may still be a chance that you are actually pregnant. Pregnancy tests taken too soon or too early in the day can give you a false negative.

Don't worry though, if you are pregnant, chances are you will begin to experience some of the many early signs of pregnancy. Early signs of pregnancy can easily be overlooked because they are commonly mistaken for flu or cold symptoms. Other early signs of pregnancy are a bit harder to overlook.

Common Early Signs of Pregnancy:

• Nausea and Vomiting or Morning Sickness. This Early Sign of Pregnancy can occur at any time of day or night, even though it is commonly referred to as Morning Sickness. Intense waves of nausea may or may not be accompanied by vomiting and can last for a few minutes to an entire day. In extreme cases, this early sign of pregnancy can cause severe dehydration and may even require hospitalization.

• Breast Swelling or Tenderness: This Early Sign of Pregnancy can be overlooked if the woman is already breastfeeding. Breasts may grow extremely tender and may increase in size, although many women do not experience this early sign of pregnancy until later in the trimester.

• Fatigue: As the body prepares itself for pregnancy and the baby implants, your levels of progesterone soar and make you extremely exhausted. In addition, decreased blood pressure and increased blood supply add to your already exhausted feeling, causing some pregnant women to expect they are getting sick. This early sign of pregnancy can be easily mistaken for illness.

• Food aversions or cravings: This early sign of pregnancy closely mimics what happens just before you start your period. You may notice an increased desire for a particular food or beverage or you may notice that suddenly the smell of fish makes you SICK.

• Mood Swings: The increase in hormones throughout your body makes many pregnant women extremely moody. This early sign of pregnancy may make you cry at the drop of a hat, or it may make you overly emotional in certain situations.

• Increased Basal Body Temperature: Your basal body temperature is your body's temperature first thing in the morning, before you even get up. Women who are trying to have a baby can use this temperature to tell them when they are ovulating and when they are pregnant. Unless you have been tracking yours though, this early sign of pregnancy will not be much helpful to you. You need to know what your baseline basal body temperature is before you will know if yours is elevated enough to tell you that you are pregnant.

• Missed period: This early sign of pregnancy is probably the first clue that something is going on in there. While many women have irregular periods, if yours is absent for a significantly longer time, you may be pregnant. Be careful though, this early sign of pregnancy may be a false alarm and a missed period for a lengthy period of time may indicate that something else is wrong.

While these early signs of pregnancy aren't conclusive, if you experience any of these symptoms, it is important to take a home pregnancy test and consult with your obstetrician. The sooner you can determine that you are pregnant, the sooner you can begin to receive prenatal care.

Other Articles Of Interest:

First Trimester Fetal Development

17 and Pregnant (an essay)

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