31 weeks preg.. bad leg cramps?!

[Loubilouu]

hello im 31 weeks pregnant tommorow, this is my first;
recently every morning i have been getting up to painful leg cramps!:|
is this normall in pregnancy's?
is there anything i can do to preventy them?

[mamamona]

Hiya! I'm 32 weeks pregnant and I've also recently started getting leg cramps, mainly in the night when I'm lying down but yesterday got them when I was sitting in a restaurant too! I think they are pretty normal and I usually just massage them out after wailing a bit.

Would love to know the exact reason why they happen, can anyone shed some light?

[TabithaTwitchet]

Snap - I am 30 weeks and had really bad cramps on waking a few weeks ago! I think it is normal. My mum suggested I might be dehydrated or lacking in magnesium or calcium - so I started drinking more milk and water, and taking a pregnancy multivitamin, and eating lots of leafy veg. I have definitely seen an improvement, not sure which thing is helping (or if it is all of them together.)

[lilly13]

this means you lack calcium and/or potassium. drinking skimmed milk before bedtime and/or eating veggetable form calcium (spinach, etc) could help. eat bananas for potassium... also, eat 85% dark chocolate (pref not before bedtime)

[loueytb3]

can second bananas - definitely helped me in my first pg after I started getting leg cramps. I was told it was due to low potassium.

[Zimbah]

I take a magnesium supplement to prevent leg cramps and it makes an amazing difference - in my first pregnancy I was getting very severe cramps which totally stopped once I started taking the magnesium. You can either get tablets from e.g. Holland & Barrett, or I take a powder (called Calma-C) that you make into a drink from www.highernature.co.uk. Now in second pg 35 weeks I've been taking it since about 20 weeks and touch wood, only one mild cramp so far.

Also, massaging your calves every day, plus doing calf stretching exercises, helps too, but I think it's the magnesium and calcium that make the most difference.