Tell INNOVO™ what no one warned you about pregnancy & childbirth. Win £300 Voucher. NOW CLOSED

[RebeccaEMumsnet]

In order to celebrate the launch of their alternative solution to pelvic floor strengthening – Innovotherapy – INNOVO™ want to hear the effects of pregnancy on your body that took you by surprise as nobody warned you about them.

Here’s what INNOVO™ have to say: '"Motherhood can be such a blessing and change your life in ways you never imagined, however it is filled with many shocks and surprises. Some good and some not so welcome, such as a those ‘little accidents’ that we all try and hide.
Unfortunately a weak pelvic floor and the resulting incontinence is often part and parcel of pregnancy however it doesn’t have to stay that way.
Innovotherapy is a non-invasive way to restore your pelvic floor, treating the primary cause of urinary leaks rather than just masking the symptoms. Using a hand held controller that is attached to a two part garment, Innovotherapy sends targeted impulses via conductive pads (attached to your upper thigh and buttocks) to safely and effectively activate the muscles of the pelvic floor. It is a proven technology which has been designed to optimally strengthen your pelvic floor allowing you to return to return the more important things in life, such as your little ones.”

You can read more about the product and advice on pelvic floor strengthening here.

So, what unexpected effects did pregnancy and giving birth have on your body? Did anyone tell you to expect urinary leaks after having a baby? Did you consider the importance of toning your pelvic floor? Were you surprised by any other physical effects that nobody warned you about?

INNOVO™ would also love to know about any unexpected positive effects of pregnancy and giving birth. Does parenthood make you feel like you can take on the world? Do you now feel like you are more focused on what matters most?

Whatever the unexpected effects of pregnancy and childbirth were for you, post your story below. Everyone who adds a comment will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

After pains were the biggest shock for me too. I'd never heard of them and they were worse than being labour.
Also the fact my feet are now half a size bigger

There was always a smirk whenever pelvic floor was mentioned. If they'd just come out and said if you don't do this you are x times more likely to leak when you sneeze then I'd have taken it more seriously and not just thought it was unlikely to happen!

Sorry I meant being *in labour.

My skin, hair and nails were amazing during pregnancy: clear, less oily skin; strong healthy hair and nails that grew like no tomorrow!

But... wasn't expecting so much of my hair would fall out c. 3 months after birth. Big bald patches - not just losing what you don't lose during pregnancy!

.

That the after pains would be worse than actual labour.

Negative things I didn't know about: impressive wind, two months of painful Braxton Hicks

Positive things I didn't know about: the overwhelming hormonal surge of love for my tiny new baby. I had heard about it, but I'm quite a rational, practical person and didn't expect it to happen for me. What a rush! I've never experienced anything like it.

No one warned me that I would forget the heart burn, the aches, the pains, the labour, after pains etc., and go on to do it twice more!

Dark pigmentation around the breasts, arm pits and down below. If I wasn't feeling unattractive enough this was the icing on the cake. Even after giving birth it is fading very, very slowly so keep panicking that it will stay forever.

Sickness for the whole of the pregnancy. Now I'm dealing with the mess it has made of my teeth.
I didn't think SPD could be that bad, how wrong I was. Hobbling around on crutches for 15 weeks wad awful.
I was expecting "the glow", lies, lies, lies.

That I would bounce back very quickly, ignore my pelvic floor and pay for it years later.

That when you are told you may feel a bit "sore" after a c-section, what they really mean is "agonising pain".
And the bastards won't let you take anything stronger than paracetamol and ibuprofen. Because, y'know, i only got pregnant so i could get my hands on some pukka painkillers. I was eyed up like i was a crack addict, because i asked if i could have something a bit stronger.

That you bleed for days after giving birth. A Lot. When I got up to have my first shower a few hours after delivering my baby, the hospital bathroom looked like a scene from the worst slasher movie ever. Blood everywhere including massive clots. I was alone and panicked, thinking I was haemorrhaging! Nurse blithely unconcerned, gave me a tiny pad and disappeared again

Can I just chip in and say that companies that insist on putting " TM" after every mention of the brand always come across to me as very corporate, not very friendly and a bit arsey. I know it's something the lawyers like and marketing people like to think it's protecting the brand, but it's so clunky and unfriendly to consumers. Yuck.

I see the brand must always be capitalised too. That falls into precisely the same category for me.

Sorry, I shall go away now but thought I'd mention one of my pet peeves

Where do I begin??? I love my kids but, my body has really taken a physical hit.
Hair loss & low hair porosity had continuous problems during & after pregnancy.
Lose skin
After birth pains especially if you've had more than 1 child arggghhhhhhh and if your breastfeeding!!!!!!!!

That you can have a 'natural' delivery and be in a much worse state 6 weeks later than someone who had a c section. Thanks to episiotomy stitches getting infected and gaping I was still in a lot of pain and hardly walking. I had convinced myself that if women all recover from major surgery by 6 weeks I would be fine...I wasn't!

Also stretch marks post birth- especially on boobs!

How you become public property and any random stranger thinks it's ok to discuss the size of your bump

I wish I had known there was such a thing as a specialist pelvic floor physio at my local hospital. She fixed all the problems I was having after dc1 but I didn't find her until 9 months pp. Thanks to my health visitor for suggesting her as neither my GP, midwife or gynae thought to!

How you don't really lose hair for 9 months of pregnancy. But then a few weeks after baby is born the excess hair you should have lost gradually starts coming out in huge clumps. Mine came out all over the bed at my FIL's house when we visited. It was horrible.

I had read up pretty extensively on pregnancy whilst carrying my first child (both parents are health care professionals), but had no clue about how it would really affect me. The surprises were:

• Breathlessness
• Awful acid indigestion
• Diastasis recti
• Severe constipation in later pregnancy
• How important pelvic floor exercises are, and how to do them properly
• Nighttime leg cramps!
• The pain of being kicked in the cervix/bladder
• Any kind of prolapse, about this I had no clue and it still saddens me to this day, that so many women (including myself) end up with damage that changes their entire outlook on their own womanhood, and can leave you an emotional wreck. I was unable to walk for days and was told this was 'normal'. Such a horrible experience.
• The idea that something you can initially only see with a microscope can turn into a life sized trouble maker, capable of harassing you hundreds of times a day for chocolate kinder egg 'surprises'...but you wouldn't change a thing

Heartburn, oh the heartburn! Another unwanted side effect was the piles, which I suffered with horrendously with both pregnancies.

I had really itchy/sensitive boobs which I couldn't help but itch when out in public . I also suffered from black outs/dizzy spells.

Postpartum, I struggled with going to the toilet. I wouldn't open my bowls for days. Yet my weak pelvic floor meant I only had to laugh and I would accidentally wet myself .

Positives? When everything changes as ion as the baby comes out and is put on your chest. I was so proud that I had grew a human being and now he was out in the world and I'd done something I doubted whether I could ever do. My emotions were overwhelming. It was amazing!

Oh god the hair loss...

I actually broke my Hoover because I was moulting that badly it clogged all the workings up and all you could smell was burning hair..
My dd had hair coming from her bum where she had unknowingly ingested it. Dh too. The funniest was the dog. She ran around yelping. Wondered what on earth was wrong when I spotted a lump of poo hanging from her arse....attached by one of my hairs! Had to get a baby wipe and pull it out. Poor dog

That you will still look pregnant after giving birth, but instead of a lovely baby bump it will be a spongy dough that you could lose your hand in.

Oh, and my feet have grown after having DC3. But not longer, no, that would be easy, they are wider. I now can't fit in normal width shoes, or even wide fit. I now have extra wide feet and shoe shopping is a nightmare. I'm having to come to terms with never wearing lovely shoes ever again!!!!

Oh yes, the fact that your thick bouncy pregnancy hair would quickly go limp, lifeless and thin after the birth ,the back fat and the stretched hooded tummy button you're left with.

That my body would change so entirely
I had really awful PND because of how horrendously my body had changed. I didn't expect everything to be normal but I didn't expect everything to contort the way it did.
My stomach will never be flat again no matter how much weight I lose, my boobs will never look nice unless I get surgery which I don't want to do. I have stretch marks in places I didn't know could get stretch marks. I've aged 10 years in only 3...

I used to be confident & pregnancy at 20 left me a total shell of who I used to be!

Other than that it's been fabulous

I remember leaning over the bath to wash my hair and glancing down at the saggy empty things that were now my boobs.