Big Stomach After Miscarriage: How To Shrink Your Tummy After This Trauma

Big Stom­ach After Miscarriage Los­ing a baby through mis­car­riage after sev­er­al weeks or a few months is deeply trau­ma­tiz­ing for women. It leaves emo­tion­al scars that may last months or years, and it is an expe­ri­ence from which some women nev­er quite recov­er. At the very least, mis­car­riage is an upset­ting emo­tion­al event that no woman for­gets, even once she begins to heal and move on. Depend­ing on when you mis­car­ry – how far along in the preg­nan­cy you were – you may find your­self cop­ing with a big tum­my in the months after los­ing the baby. (Just to be clear: if you’ve lost your baby after 20 weeks, it is a still­birth.) Here at seizeyourlifetoday.com, we know that women who have endured a mis­car­riage must deal with an array of emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal hur­dles in order to recov­er. One of those hur­dles might be an excess weight around the waist­line. Weight gain is, of course, per­fect­ly nat­ur­al and encour­aged dur­ing those all-impor­tant first months of preg­nan­cy. But after you’ve mis­car­ried, what can you do to shed those extra pounds? In this arti­cle, we explore not only why you may be car­ry­ing excess weight but how you can lose it in a sen­si­ble and healthy way. Some­times los­ing a baby trig­gers emo­tion­al eat­ing, which may cause you to gain even more weight in spite of the mis­car­riage. How do you stop that cycle and get back to your pre-preg­nan­cy health and vitality? For help deal­ing with a big stom­ach after a mis­car­riage, con­tin­ue read­ing and learn what the experts say.

- Remember: Be Patient and Be Kind To Yourself

Let’s say you put on sev­en or eight pounds in the ear­ly stages of preg­nan­cy. Los­ing the baby does­n’t ensure you’ll lose those pounds right away. Your body has gone through a com­pli­cat­ed “baby prepa­ra­tion” process, so to speak. Hor­mones like estro­gen fluc­tu­ate and increase wild­ly through­out preg­nan­cy. Los­ing a baby inter­rupts that process, but hor­mone lev­els won’t set­tle down immediately. Give your body time to sta­bi­lize its hor­mone lev­els before tack­ling your tum­my’s extra weight. After all, cop­ing with such a pro­found loss takes time, and when some time has passed, you’ll be more ready to deal with shrink­ing your bel­ly and get­ting back into your pre­vi­ous weight and shape.

- Are You Eating Now For Emotional Consolation?

Weight gain is a nor­mal, healthy part of preg­nan­cy. But los­ing a baby can trig­ger emo­tion­al eat­ing – indulging in unhealthy foods that give instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion but not much in the way of nutri­tion. Many peo­ple (not just women) eat to con­sole them­selves dur­ing emo­tion­al­ly stress­ful times. And the pain and guilt that accom­pa­nies mis­car­riage some­times cause women to take com­fort in foods that are plea­sur­able at the moment but not good for them overall. If you’re doing this, the first step is being aware of it and slow­ly mak­ing pos­i­tive changes to your diet. If you’ve been buy­ing a favourite snack food or sug­ary treat, stop. You’ll be less like­ly to indulge if they aren’t on your pantry shelf, tempt­ing you.

- Begin Exercising As Soon As Your Doctor Gives You The Green Light

Depend­ing on when the mis­car­riage occurred, you will need plen­ty of rest before begin­ning to work out vig­or­ous­ly again. Your doc­tor is the best per­son to ask for advice on this. How­ev­er, a lit­tle gen­tle exer­cise is valu­able right away. Even get­ting out for a brisk walk in the fresh air will improve your mood and begin burn­ing calo­ries. Once you’ve recov­ered, you should start doing car­dio and resis­tance train­ing at your pri­or levels. These aren’t just tools for weight loss; they go a long way toward giv­ing you rush­es of all-impor­tant endor­phins. This help improves mood, pro­motes good sleep and makes you bet­ter able to cope with the height­ened emo­tions that accom­pa­ny a mis­car­riage. Once you are into an exer­cise rou­tine again, give some extra atten­tion to your abdom­i­nal muscles. Doing crunch­es and oth­er moves that tar­get your stom­ach helps shrink your tum­my and strength­ens your low­er back in the process. Resis­tance train­ing is a great way to fire up your metab­o­lism, so if you haven’t got any weights at home or aren’t accus­tomed to using them at the gym, now is the time to incor­po­rate them into your routine.

- Drink Plenty Of Water

As any weight loss expert will tell you, stay­ing hydrat­ed while try­ing to lose weight is key. Tak­ing in lots of flu­ids helps your body shed tox­ins and bloat, and you’ll feel trim­mer and look slim­mer if you con­sume six or eight large glass­es of water each day. Fur­ther­more, water is great for your complexion! Stay­ing hydrat­ed helps fine lines and wrin­kles look less obvi­ous and makes your skin smooth and clear. You can drink oth­er drinks as well, like calo­rie-free Crys­tal Light. (Check out our arti­cle on the deli­cious flavours of low-cal Crys­tal Light that work well on any weight reduc­tion program.)

- Talking To Others Helps Ease Your Pain 

Whether you talk online with a group of oth­er women who have lost babies to mis­car­riage or you vis­it a ther­a­pist in per­son for week­ly ses­sions, talk­ing about your loss is a healthy cop­ing strat­e­gy. As your anx­i­ety and pain begin to sub­side, you’ll feel more in con­trol of your emo­tions. That, in turn, will help you take con­trol of your body and get back on the path to men­tal well-being and phys­i­cal health. Once you’re in a more sta­ble and pos­i­tive frame of mind, you’ll be able to com­mit to a weight reduc­tion and exer­cise program.

- Take Up Meditation To Promote Calm

Noth­ing eas­es ten­sion bet­ter than 30 or 40 min­utes of mind­ful med­i­ta­tion. Go off by your­self, away from the fam­i­ly, and sit in a com­fort­able posi­tion in a qui­et room. Focus on tak­ing deep breaths. Each time you exhale, imag­ine you’re let­ting go of a lit­tle bit of phys­i­cal and psy­chic pain. Some women find it help­ful to qui­et­ly say good­bye to their baby dur­ing these ses­sions, grief coun­sel­lors sug­gest. Let­ting go a lit­tle each time helps you achieve clo­sure. And once you do that, you’re bet­ter equipped to move for­ward and reclaim your best phys­i­cal self.

- Talk To Your Family Members Too

While it’s help­ful to share your feel­ings with, as we not­ed above, oth­er women who’ve been through a mis­car­riage, it’s impor­tant that you talk to the rest of your fam­i­ly, too. They can’t lit­er­al­ly under­stand how you feel phys­i­cal­ly, but that does­n’t pre­clude them from expe­ri­enc­ing the loss right along with you. If your spouse was excit­ed about the impend­ing birth, no doubt they will have many feel­ings to share. The same is true if you have oth­er chil­dren who knew you were expect­ing and who were look­ing for­ward to hav­ing a new sib­ling. Although the mis­car­riage hap­pened only to you in the phys­i­cal sense, it hap­pened to all of them, too, in an emo­tion­al sense. Do your best to include them in the con­ver­sa­tion and heal­ing process, so you can unite as a fam­i­ly and move for­ward in a healthy way. And tell them you’re ready to address any weight gain you’ve expe­ri­enced. Get back to walk­ing togeth­er in the park with the kids or Sat­ur­day hikes as a fam­i­ly – activ­i­ties like these speed up your metab­o­lism and burn calories. Doing things togeth­er also fos­ters close­ness and brings you togeth­er as a tight fam­i­ly unit. You may find that not only is every­one sup­port­ive of your weight loss goals, but they may also be will­ing to join in and revamp meals so that every­one starts eat­ing better.

In Summary

Los­ing a baby to a mis­car­riage is a dif­fi­cult phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al process that takes time to recov­er from. Hav­ing a big stom­ach after­wards is bound to impact your self-esteem and self-con­fi­dence. That’s why it’s so impor­tant that you begin address­ing weight gain as soon as you can, both med­ical­ly and psychologically. Eat­ing nutri­tious, whole foods, pay­ing atten­tion to por­tion size and get­ting fresh air and exer­cise are all key com­po­nents of a “get­ting healthy again” pro­gram you should begin as soon as you are able. As long as your doc­tor approves, you should start a new reg­i­men with­in sev­er­al days or a few weeks of los­ing the baby. This is a trau­mat­ic and emo­tion­al peri­od in a wom­an’s life. How­ev­er, reclaim­ing your body in a healthy way by los­ing weight and exer­cis­ing goes a long way toward help­ing you heal. Talk to oth­ers who have expe­ri­enced a sim­i­lar loss; ask your fam­i­ly for sup­port and pos­i­tive rein­force­ment of new goals; and seek pro­fes­sion­al help if you’re strug­gling to over­come the sad­ness that accom­pa­nies miscarriage. Once you begin cop­ing with the loss, you’ll feel ready to make pos­i­tive changes to your eat­ing habits and exer­cise rou­tine. And once you’re on the road to good health again, you can make a choice about when you may want to try again for anoth­er baby. But first, pay atten­tion to your phys­i­cal needs. Hav­ing a big stom­ach after a mis­car­riage is demor­al­iz­ing. Fol­low the guide­lines we’ve men­tioned here, and you’ll be on your way to good health and vital­i­ty again very soon.