Ten early signs of pregnancy

04 January 2007 - 02:00
By unknown

1. Missed period

1. Missed period

The most obvious early symptom of pregnancy is when you've missed your period. This sign of likely pregnancy is often what causes women to search for more details about pregnancy symptoms.

2. Fatigue

One of the earliest pregnancy signs for some women is feeling exhausted. You start going to bed earlier, or find it harder than usual to get out of bed in the morning. If you are working, by noon you might feel like you need to lie down.

3. Breast tenderness

One of the very noticeable early signs of pregnancy is tender, swollen and somewhat sore breasts. You might notice this at bedtime when you are trying to get comfortable to go to sleep, when exercising or showering, or when getting dressed.

4. Feeling pregnant

This early pregnancy symptom might be why you are checking out this list right now. Many women believe they have an intuition about when they are pregnant. Their intuition is often correct.

5. Frequent urination

An early symptom of pregnancy that others might notice is frequent trips to the toilet. If you don't notice this sign, you can be sure that someone else will. One cause of this pregnancy symptom is that the swelling uterus puts pressure on your bladder.

6. Sensitivity to aromas

Another early symptom of pregnancy is a heightened sensitivity to aromas. Even a favourite aroma, such as the smell of a food or perfume, can make you feel ill. Freshly mown grass, the smell of a petrol station, and household cleaners, perfumes, cigarette smoke and many other smells can cause you to feel nauseous. This is thought to be yet another side-effect of the estrogen that is flooding your body.

7. Mood swings and irritability

With all of these symptoms of pregnancy to deal with, along with raging hormones, is it any wonder that you might experience mood swings and irritability? There is also the emotional adjustment to your new responsibility - your world has changed.

8. Lower-back pain

The early pregnancy symptom of lower-back pain can be "a real pain". The pain is caused by several factors. First is your weight change. You gain some weight because you are pregnant, your uterus gets bigger and your baby grows larger every week. Your posture and torso are thrown out of alignment. Most of the additional weight is in the front of your torso, which pulls on your back.

9. Implantation bleeding

One of the less-known pregnancy symptoms is the slight bleeding and spotting that can be caused when the fertilised egg begins to implant itself in the wall of the uterus. This is known as "implantation bleeding" and it usually takes place three to six days after fertilisation.

10. Pregnancy tests

If you are worrying about possible early symptoms of pregnancy, you can have a pregnancy test. More than just a pregnancy symptom, this is proof positive that you are expecting a baby.