
Pregnancy is a miracle and a wonderful gift, but gee, it causes some hectic changes in your body. Aside from the part where you’re growing a human inside your belly.
After co-existing with your body for however many years, many of which you’ve spent trying to figure out what it likes and doesn’t like, the things that happen to that body during pregnancy are wild.
For some expectant mums, one of those things is pregnancy acne.
The reason for this, in short, is because of the extra hormones surging through your body when you’re with child. Even if you’ve never really had acne before, or had it as a teenager but thought you’d grown out of it, you may experience different types of pimples or acne during pregnancy.
It doesn’t help that all you ever hear about pregnant women is how great their skin is and how much they’re glowing. If you’re pregnant and your skin is playing up, it can only add to the jumble of feelings you’re experiencing about your ever-changing body.
Side note – if you want a bit of a laugh, check out our video on things pregnant women never say. Post continues after video.
Sheridan Rollard, skincare expert and owner of Shine Skin and Body, has been treating pregnancy acne as a beauty therapist for over 20 years. In her experience, pregnancy acne is just one of the things that can shatter the illusion of what pregnancy is going to be like.
“Pregnancy is seen as a beautiful time in your life, and for some, it is. But in reality, for some women, it can include morning sickness, fluid retention and acne. We find at Shine we have quite a lot of pregnant woman come in who just want to enjoy this time, but are really disappointed in and despairing about their breakouts,” Rollard told Mamamia.
To figure out what causes pregnancy acne, which traditional acne treatments you can’t use during pregnancy and the best pregnancy acne treatments that are safe, we asked Rollard every pregnancy acne question you’ve ever wanted to know the answer to.
Acne and pregnancy – what is pregnancy acne?
Much like when you were going through puberty (ah, fun times), your body experiences an increase in hormones during pregnancy that can contribute to acne.
“Pregnancy acne occurs when a surge of hormones designed to stabilise your pregnancy and help feed your baby to grow also results in changes in your blood sugar and insulin levels. All these combined can create more oil, and a stickier and thicker oil, in your pores, making your pores more likely to be infected by bacteria and result in inflammation and breakouts,” Rollard said.