Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Day 159 - I Can't Deny I've Got This Heartburn

When John Hurt's Kane emerges from his face-hugger trauma in Alien, he responds to an enquiry after his well being with, 'Feel like somebody's been beating me with a stick for about six years'. This is hardly surprising since he's had an alien gestating in his abdomen. I feel bad enough after a big curry, let alone extra-terrestrial impregnation.

So, it's hardly surprising that pregnant women suffer some discomfort as a result of having a baby pushing their insides about. As the baby grows bigger, the baby bump moves up into the abdomen, eventually coming to a rest under the ribs. But where do the organs go, you ask - and very sensibly too, I may add. Well, in possibly the least astonishing revelation ever, they get pushed up into the chest. Nice! This puts pressure on the stomach and may result in it being a little more volatile than usual.

I wrote about ligaments and tendons being softened as a result of the hormones Prgesterone and Relaxin a couple of days ago. One job ligaments do is keep valves closed. Valves like the one that normally leads into the stomach. Slacken them off a bit and combine with a stomach that's been forced out of its normal shape and you have the perfect conditions for a bit of heartburn. There's nothing quite like a bit of stomach acid splashing up inside your throat to make a girl feel really special.

And yes, you've guessed it, K___ is suffering from it. Yet another pregnancy bonus! Yay!

I dunno... A lot of the posts recently have been very much 'oh woe is K___, pregnancy sucks' type posts. It's certainly fair to say K___'s not overly impressed with the whole pregnancy thing, but at the same time, of course there's lots of happy bits, not least how happy she was that our daughter finally got around to kicking Dad in the face. Maybe that was just transference?

To try and end on a slightly more upbeat note, K___ went and got herself a bottle of Gaviscon on the advice of the pharmacist and that does seem to go some way to mitigating the effects. The pharmacist also mentioned that she would be able to get future doses for free if she went to the doctors, which is good to know.

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