Abdominal pain during pregnancy

In the first weeks of your pregnancy, you may experience pain in your lower abdomen. The fertilized egg nestles in the wall of your uterus. Your uterus undergoes all kinds of changes. So the pain, cramps, a little menstrual-like pain is harmless.

Because of the growing uterus, you may experience abdominal pain. Your belly is growing, your baby is developing and getting bigger. This growth process changes occur in your body, the uterus pushes against your intestines, muscles and tissues stretch.

The pressing of the uterus against the organs can give you abdominal pain. So it is not crazy to experience abdominal pain during pregnancy.

You may hear the term “tire pain” a lot. Especially in the 1st and 2nd trimesters, you may experience a nagging, stabbing pain in your groin area. The pain often radiates to your lower abdomen, lower back and around your pubic bone. You can get this pain from sudden movements or changing your posture. There is nothing you can do about it. It often comes on suddenly and can last for a long time. A nice warm hot water bottle, relaxing bath or shower can sometimes provide relief.

Because of the hormones your body produces (extra) during your pregnancy, your digestion changes. As a result, you may experience bloating, flatulence and constipation. These discomforts are the reasons why you may experience abdominal pain during your pregnancy. Diet and exercise can help. Read more about how you can still prevent this ailment as much as possible.

The uterus is a muscle. And one of the characteristics of a muscle is also sometimes contracting/tightening. As pregnancy progresses, in the second trimester you may also experience this more often. Pregnant women often experience the pain as a cramp and the abdomen feels tight and tense. Fortunately, on average, a hard belly lasts only thirty to sixty seconds. A hard belly should not really hurt like ligament pain, but it is experienced as annoying. Rest and relaxation, a nice warm hot water bottle, nice bath or hot shower can help at that time. If you have more frequent hard bellies, discuss this with your team midwife.

During pregnancy, you are more susceptible to a bladder infection. Often a bladder infection is accompanied by pain in your lower abdomen. If you think you have a bladder infection, you should be treated quickly with antibiotics. Don’t wait too long, as an untreated bladder infection can turn into a kidney pelvis infection or premature birth. Symptoms that can occur with a bladder infection:

• Burning sensation during urination
• Frequent (small bits) urination
• Fever or an elevation
• Blood in your urine or cloudy urine

It is sometimes popularly referred to as preeclampsia. This means that your blood pressure is too high during your pregnancy. Preeclampsia is a serious condition during pregnancy which can lead to serious health problems in addition to pain in your lower abdomen. We prefer to refer to these blood pressure-related conditions as pregnancy hypertension, pre-eclampsia and/or HELLP syndrome. Often, women actually have many vague symptoms, such as abdominal pain. Because of this, the pain is sometimes initially mistaken for gallstone attacks, renal pelvic inflammation, stomach flu or appendicitis. In addition to abdominal pain, you may be able to recognize one of these conditions by the following symptoms:

• High blood pressure
• Severe pain in the upper abdomen or under the breast/stomach pit (typical of HELLP syndrome)
• Fluid retention and therefore weight gain (more than two pounds)
• Band feeling (band around head or abdomen)
• Nausea/much vomiting
• Fatigue/flu feeling, general malaise
• Protein in the urine
• Concentration problems
• Headache
• Facial disorders such as seeing stars or flashes of light, blurred vision
• Pain in the upper back or between the shoulder blades
• Tingling (e.g., in the fingers) due to fluid retention
• Trembling as of consequence excitation of nerves
• Little urination (in a later stage)

Many women think of miscarriage when they experience abdominal pain in the first trimester. As you have already read, you can experience abdominal pain in the 1st trimester and certainly so other causes. It is not always the sign that the pregnancy is not good. With a miscarriage, blood loss from the vagina is more often the first symptom, but this is not necessarily the case. If your body does start to lose the pregnancy, you may experience cramps. Women initially experience this as menstrual-like cramps, which can actually increase to contraction-like big painful cramps. This can last from a few hours to a few days after the blood loss.

More about miscarriage

Ectopic pregnancy is not common (1.5-2%), but it can be serious if not detected early. In addition to abdominal pain, symptoms such as vaginal bleeding, fainting and nausea occur. These symptoms often occur between six and 10 weeks after implantation of the fertilized egg. An untreated ectopic pregnancy is dangerous. If your body does not reject it on its own, you should see a gynecologist. A gynecologist can prescribe medicine or perform surgery. Are you unsure about the type of abdominal pain you have, and are you experiencing other symptoms with it? Then of course you can definitely contact one of our midwives.

We briefly describe this complication of pregnancy here now because it also involves you experiencing abdominal pain. Fortunately, this complication is very rare (0.2%). It is very important not to think of this complication immediately if you experience abdominal pain during pregnancy. The symptoms of a detached placenta are often very clear. A detachment can occur after 16 weeks of pregnancy until the end of pregnancy. The typical of symptoms of this complication are the very acute occurrence of very intense abdominal pain. Your uterus is also often very painfully hard and tense. Often you also have blood loss. The pain is continuously present. With this acute very severe abdominal pain, be sure to contact the obstetrician immediately.