Constipation in early pregnancy...

[lovechoc]

anyone else getting this? am nearly 8 weeks and still suffering badly from this despite eating well and drinking frequently (water) throughout the day.

Anything at the chemist I can buy to relieve it?

TIA.

You can buy Fybogel which helps but I found it also gave me incredible wind the first few times I took it but I persevered and it worked.

thanks oops will stop by the chemist tomorrow (should be one open in the area) and get some Fybogel.

lovechoc I had terrible constipation in the first 12 weeks of my pregnancy and it got so bad I had to go to my gp, cause I didn't poo for nearly a week and felt horrible!! Anyway a bit lactolose sorted me right out, it was the best poo ever (sorry if TMI!!)

I ate linda mccartney veggie sausages, they are guaranteed to make me poo (might just be me though!)

It's normal. Your innards are sluggish due to the progesterone. I don't think that it is particularly helpful to have an extremely high fiber diet. If you do have a lot of fiber, you also have to have loads of water, otherwise you will make the situation worse.

On the plus side, you are getting lots of exercise down below that will be useful when you push the baby out.

I swear by sitting on the toilet with a magazine or book and not worrying about it.

Sister (student MW) told me that I should sit on loo with feet elevated (like resting on a four pack of loo roll) and to rock back and forth. Apparently that helps any poo "come down" (c: She was right (c: I also was very constipated in first trimester and these titbits of advise really helped (she mentioned the other things as well...)

Yep, I had this too - gas was so painful the doctor suspected ectopic pregnancy!! I was prescribed some awful tasting fig/prune stuff from the chemist (no prescription needed), and this seemed to sort it out. Peppermint tea also helped with the gas a lot. It disappeared around 9 weeks.

cutting down on wheat and eating porridge with linseeds helped me in my first pregnancy.

this time, i changed vitamins from well-known easily available brand to one from the health food shop with a different kind of iron in it - constipation and nausea both improved hugely and i didn't need to give up toast and marmite yay!

I had the same, I thought it was mainly due to not having my normal coffee and ciggie in the morning!
Senna... I dunno if it's recommended as some medication is not, but I took it cos it was natural. Lots of gas tho.
Also Satsumas saved my life I reckon.. I eat about 10 a day!
And I sit on the loo playing games on my phone!

thanks everyone. will have to give porridge a miss for now, looking at it makes me want to puke (normally I eat it every other day!).

Isn't it horrible being bloated all the time? Exercise definately has been helping so when I'm out and about it's not on my mind as much either..night time is worst!

Thanks for sharing your stories

wibblela yes I've been rocking back and forth on the loo to try and get some movement going. sometimes it's helping, other times I'm just releasing gas.

The joys of pregnancy!

if you can't manage the porridge, how about Oatibix? Or I can recommend my banana oat cookies - they work very well if you have about 5 a day.

I found that prune juice was also very helpful (I get constipated from about the first fortnight) and eating an apple a day (soluble fibre rather than the harsher stuff)

I had this at the beginning and now am at the end, it's back again - saw a reflexologist yesterday who reckons that the Food Doctor's seed mix is hugely effective. Can't vouch for it myself, but will be buying some tomorrow!

Good luck - it's a real pain isn't it (both literally and figuratively).