Feeling Stretched? 12
Whether you are worried about stretchmarks or scars after a C-Section, you need to know that You Are Not Alone!
Nobody likes stretch marks. Simply nobody! Most pregnant women notice they have stretch marks as they routinely apply lotions and oils on their bodies. Just as she smiles at her beautiful face on the full length mirror admiring her growing bump, having come straight from the bathroom as she was born, she suddenly stops in her tracks. She moves closer to the mirror; what is that she just saw? The smile turns into a somber expression. Yes, it is a thin stretch, ‘out of the blue,’ as most would say. It looks like…a stretch mark!
It can be quite a moment of discovery for those who dread the stretch mark. That is if they have not already had the annoying marks in their life. Indeed if you have stretch marks for the first time because you are pregnant, you deserve to be labelled a very lucky woman.
As some women will testify, their stretch marks first appeared during their adolescence, in high school days—when fish, chips and cocoa mixed with sugar and butter were her greatest delicacies. Weight came with a bang as she munched the goodies from parents, friends and her ‘boyfie’ (so much nonsense, now that she is ‘mummy’).
The initial chill was caused by the prospect of going to the communal bathroom and stripping for all other girls to see the prettiest girl in the class display the most unsightly stretch marks. In time however, she got used to it, as she soon realised—now that she had stretch marks—that virtually every other girl had her own share of the menace. She prayed that the stretch marks would disappear soon enough. At such times, dieting and jogging become the buzz words.
However, stretch marks can be a real nuisance. If you do nothing about them, they may not necessarily heal and leave you as smooth as a teen; they can leave scars and dark lines.
So as the school girl moves on to become a young college girl, the stretch marks never leave her mind. She plays hide and seek with them. Her new nightmare is ever having to strip in front of her man; meaning when she is happily married—when else! For him to see her long marks and scars would be embarrassing. It is a perfect abstinence enforcer; that’s why she will get married as a virgin. In reality, and seriously though, this fear of naked intimacy might live on until the day she leaves planet earth!
Despite seeming trivial and somewhat over-exaggerated when a woman talks about her experience with stretch marks, the mental agony can be very real. One woman wrote to a counselor: ‘When he touches me I feel his fingers literary examining my stretch marks! I cannot get my mind to think straight and be romantic. I feel him counting them.’ Sounds like vanity? Not really; let’s not joke about it.
Interestingly, the occurrence of stretch marks may not be what distresses some pregnant women most; she expects them anyway. Agony heightens when you try feverishly to get rid of them without much success. There are certain steps you can take to lessen their appearance and visibility, for instance applying lotions and oils rich in collagen and vitamin E.
Though inevitable, the undesirable look of caesarean scars can be lessened by use of scar creams. It is believed that a scar as a result of a lower horizontal incision at the abdomen is less visible compared to a vertical Caesarean incision. If you use the appropriate health and beauty products, you can help minimize these scars and relatively enjoy your beautiful body as much as you did before.
END:PG12/11