You’re amazed at the changes that take place in your body as your baby grows — your stomach balloons, your breasts enlarge, to say nothing of the myriad little alterations that take place from head to toe. Some of these smaller changes might include the appearance of spider veins, which affect about 60% of pregnant women.
While a perfectly normal side effect of carrying a child, and not a dangerous one, Dr. Madaiah Revana and the team here at Humble Cardiology Associates thought we’d spend some time discussing the link between spider veins and pregnancy.
Spider veins during pregnancy can appear anywhere, but most women find them on their legs. This is because the veins in your legs have, arguably, the toughest job delivering blood back up to your heart, combating more distance and gravity than any other part of your body.
To help keep the blood flowing upward, these veins are equipped with valves that close as blood passes through, preventing it from pooling.
When you’re pregnant, your blood volume increases by about 45%, and this number rises to about 50% to 60% during your third trimester. This significant increase in blood volume means that your veins and valves are working harder to keep blood flowing to your heart, and they might not be able to keep up. As a result, blood can engorge superficial blood vessels and push them toward the surface, creating spider veins and varicose veins.
On top of the increase in blood volume that occurs when you’re pregnant, your growing uterus can also place added pressure on your blood vessels.
The good news is that spider veins are perfectly harmless. The bad news is that, once they form, they don’t go away on their own.
If you have some souvenirs of your pregnancy in the form of spider veins, we do offer treatments that can clear away these pesky blemishes.
One of our more effective tools is our VeinGogh™ technology. With VeinGogh, we deliver microbursts of laser energy into the spider veins, causing them to break apart. Not only are the VeinGogh treatments quick and easy, we can use the technology on any skin type.
If you have larger spider veins, we can also turn to sclerotherapy, a technique in which we inject the vein with an agent that causes it to collapse.
Whether we collapse the veins using sclerotherapy or we break them apart with laser technology, your body reabsorbs the veins, and your blood finds healthier vessels to make its journey to your heart.
If you’d like to figure out which approach is best for your pregnancy-related spider veins, we invite you to schedule a consultation with us at one of our two offices in Humble or Houston, Texas. To get started, simply click here.
