Hot flashes are quite common during pregnancy, and affect your wellness and wellbeing due to the changes in hormones that occur in your body at this time. Your sexual and reproductive system is largely governed by hormones, which is why hot flashes are most commonly associated with menopause, a time when huge changes are occurring in the hormones associated with the reproductive system. Hot flashes are also common in pregnancy, however, although they tend to occur towards the end of pregnancy rather than in the first two trimesters. They are even more common in the postpartum period (the time just after giving birth).
Hormones such as progesterone, which are common in pregnancy, raise your body temperature, and some of the other side effects of pregnancy, such as nausea, can also increase your temperature or feeling of cold sweats. The heat generated by the developing baby can also lead to you feeling increasingly hot as the pregnancy progresses.
Researchers have recently found that pregnant women complain of suffering from hot flashes five times more often than those who are not pregnant (of the same age). In fact, around 90 percent of pregnant women are thought to suffer from hot flashes during the postpartum period, and 81 percent of women start having hot flashes around or before the third trimester.
Hot flashes can even occur before you have discovered that you are pregnant, around about the time that the embryo normally implants into the wall of the uterus. This is usually about eight to 10 days after ovulation occurs. Progesterone is produced after ovulation and this may be the reason for hot flashes to occur at this time.
As they are caused by hormones, you cannot prevent hot flashes altogether but you can try to use external methods to keep your body temperature down.
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