How does pregnancy affect your vision?

How does pregnancy affect your vision?

My pregnancy days are sadly a way behind me now – the last time I grew a small human bean was over 8 years ago now (how the heck can that be?).
But you never forget how, do you? I bloody LOVED being pregnant. Even with all the awkward, uncomfortable downsides, I never ever grew tired of it, or was ready for it to end.

But I do recall pregnancy as the time my body started falling apart on me. My hair got darker (and I loved being blonde…), got thicker, then feckin well fell OUT. By the handful. What is THAT all about???
I had to have my only dental treatments in the last 20 years during each of my four pregnancies (my dentist swore it was coincidence; or I was eating a lot of sugary foods (I wasn’t). I might’ve sworn at him (in my head. The man had sharp implements in my mouth at the time, I’m no fool).

My hips and lower back pretty much broke (no surprise there; pregnancy number three was the third time in five years my body had gone through this, and I was lugging a baby and a toddler around on my hips all day. Goodbye my spine…), never to recover their youthful vigour. And I had to see the optician a few times too. Admittedly the first time because my darling firstborn had broken my glasses in his ham-fisted toddler grasp, but I also had horrible issues with dryness. Contact lenses were out, and long hours on the computer caused a series of headaches that ceased the day I went on maternity leave.

Vision Direct UK recently ran a thread on Mumsnet, talking about vision during pregnancy, and received some really interesting responses.

Some women said that they experienced a change in their prescription, while in other cases women reported having drier eyes during pregnancy (*waves hand in air in solidarity with the dry-eye sisterhood*).

There were even respondents who said their vision improved – the body’ s a mad thing when it’s making a baby, isn’t it? The experts advice as to why these changes occur are listed too. Apparently both my headaches and dry eyes were down to ‘hormonal changes’.  Eye drops were what my own optician recommended, and they felt like a warm bath at the end of a long day – absolutely heavenly on my raw gritty eyeballs.

Pregnancy-Vision-Infographic

Author: Laura

A 70's child, I’ve been married for a Very Long Time, and appear to have made four children, and collected one large and useless dog along the way. I work, I have four children, I have a dog… ergo, I do not do dusting or ironing. I began LittleStuff back in (gulp) 2004. I like huge mugs of tea. And Coffee. And Cake. And a steaming cone of crispy fresh fluffy chips, smothered in salt and vinegar. #healthyeater When I grow up I am going to be quietly graceful, organised and wear lipstick every day. In the meantime I *may* have a slight butterfly-brain issue.

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1 Comment

  1. Hello Laura!

    This is a lovely piece – Such an interesting topic! Is there any chance the thread on Mumsnet is still available to browse? If so it would be great if you could link it to me, I would love to see more of what people said.

    Due to possibly going through the pregnancy process soon I am constantly searching through posts such as this – It’s such an amazing process.

    I have been reading pieces on the topic of the things to consider before having a baby. It is a lot of take on financially and mentally but I cannot wait. Really pleased I came across this – Hearing your side of the pregnancy process has excited me for the future.

    All the best

    Nat xx

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