placenta

Blush: Chest pain during pregnancy

by

The past few nights, I have slept with my Teddy.

This is not my Teddy. This one looks more like Raoul, Dragon’s sleep bear. Image from www.chapters.indigo.ca

He was given to me by my grandfather when I was born, and he is VERY well worn. I haven’t really slept with him since I was a teenager (possibly earlier, but I don’t remember the exact age when I stopped cuddling him in my sleep).

So why am I all of a sudden cuddling him again?

Because yes. (Sorry. Inside joke.)

I am cuddling my Teddy because I need the extra support between my arms as I lie on my side, otherwise my rib cage feels like it’s being crushed. And Teddy is exactly the right size to give that support and allow for easy rolling over.

Chest pain was not something I experienced in my first pregnancy. Heartburn, yes. Feeling like my upper arm was too heavy and crushing my sternum, no.

This seems to be a fairly common symptom, or at least, it was easy to find a reason why I was feeling this way. The expanding uterus puts pressure on the diaphragm, causing the rib cage to widen. Poof, pain. It’ll go back to normal once the baby is here because my internal organs will go back to their normal places.

If I had to guess, I would say that the placement of the placenta is what is causing the differences between this pregnancy and the last. The last one, I had an anterior placenta (forwards), and this time it’s up top.

Differences:

  • last time, I couldn’t stand the pain and nausea of being on my stomach, even at the very beginning; this time, I have woken up on my stomach several times and the only thing that hurts is my back
  • last time, no chest pain; this time, chest definitely hurts
  • last time, baby was mostly on the right side of my body (I felt very lopsided in third trimester); this time, baby is hanging out at the very bottom almost constantly (we’ll see what happens in third trimester)
  • last time, didn’t really grow out very much; this time, I feel like I’m already the size I was when I delivered

Hmm…that last one doesn’t really fit the hypothesis – you’d think the anterior placenta would mean a bigger belly because it’s taking up more room.

Reference

UPMC

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