What I Wish I Knew About the Second Trimester | OB-GYN Pregnancy VLOG

Hi everyone, my name is Dr. Sarah Bjorkman. I am an OBGYN and I am also just finishing up the second trimester of pregnancy. So as a first time mom and an OBGYN, we thought it would be fun to kind of document our pregnancy journey and the things that we are learning as first time parents and sharing some of our medical expertise along the way. And so this week, I am doing a second trimester vlog. Everything I've kind of learned along the way, some of the surprises, what to expect. So we're gonna get to that right after this. All right, so the second trimester, I'm looking through some of my little notes here. It was generally way more fun than the first. You know, you kind of get your energy back. Most of the time, you're not as nauseous constantly. You feel like exercising a little bit again. But then there's kind of like this lull. You're just kind of coasting along. You know, you hit 14 weeks and you just kind of coast till you hit about 20 weeks. Nothing really eventful happens between 14 and you know, 20-ish weeks. You're not like newly pregnant. You feel pretty securely pregnant. Your risk of miscarriage goes down to like less than 1%. And you're just pregnant and you're feeling better. But you don't necessarily really look pregnant yet. I know I just started early just to get wider from front to back. There wasn't really a bump. And so it's just the middle, the very middle there of pregnancy. Things do start to pick up a little bit though. Around that 20-week mark is when you go for your anatomy scan. And that is just a really, really fun time because most of the time you get to take your partner. It's one of the few appointments generally in COVID where they let you bring your partner and you get to see your little tiny human on ultrasound and make sure they've got all 10 fingers and 10 toes. And it was way fun, I know for us. And that's really kind of when things started, start to feel like they're moving. You're really pregnant. You're starting to get this little bump. And then at 24 weeks, you hit this giant pregnancy milestone, which is in the medical world and OB world and PEDS world, what we call viability. Meaning that if your baby were to be born at 24 weeks, he or she would probably survive. They would need a lot of help from the NICU and breathing support and a lot of other things. But generally that 24 week mark is this big milestone. And so I know when we hit that, we said, well, we're probably, God willing bringing home a baby now. So that is exciting. We are gonna have an episode kind of in the coming up soon, all about viability, what that means, what a NICU stay is like, the kind of interventions that they can offer to little tiny preemie babies, because some places are starting to resuscitate little tiny babies even earlier than 24 weeks, like 22 to 23. So we wanna talk about some of that nitty gritty with some of you just in case preterm labor, premature baby is something that you experience. It'll be a resource for you to kind of look at and get a feel for what's going on. So that's one milestone. Sometime before the 24, around the 24 to 28 week mark, you're also going to get to do your glucola, which is a screening test that your OB provider will do for gestational diabetes. To do this test, you have to go drink this little drink that has 50 grams of glucose in it. And they come in a variety of flavors. There's cherry, there's orange, there's lemon, lime. There's some creative ways to do it, like eating 50 grams of carbs via like, you know, gummy worms or whatever. Most people kind of hate the glucola. I'm a real freak and love, love, love, love the lemon lime, which happened to be the flavor I got for my glucola. So that was awesome. But you basically chug this little drink, sugary drink, and then they check your blood sugar. They do a blood test one hour after you drink that drink. And if your blood sugar is below a certain number, they say, great, you passed. You are very low risk for having gestational diabetes. And if you are above the number, which is the cutoff varies from hospital to hospital, but the number is generally usually around 130 to 140. If you're above that number, then you have to do the dreadful three hour glucose, glucola test, glucose tolerance test, which you drink, you have to go back a few days or a week later, you drink an even bigger drink. They check your blood sugar at when you get there. So you're fasting, chug. And then they check it at one, two, and the three hour mark. And if two of those values are off above the cutoff points, then you have gestational diabetes, which is not awesome. And it really forces you to make a big change in your diet, your eating habits, and potentially need to be on medications for that. It happens. But if you cannot have gestational diabetes, that's great, but you just never know how your placenta is going to react or your body is going to react to those placental hormones. There's this thing called human placental lactogen that causes your body to be kind of insulin resistant. And I know lots of fit, healthy people who end up with gestational diabetes just because that's how their body handled those pregnancy hormones. So you never know if you find yourself in that boat of having gestational diabetes, come back and check out our future episode. We're going to talk all about gestational diabetes, all about these screening tests and break it down for you. All right, let's talk about some of my favorite things or things that I have been using in the second trimester that were different from the first. I have started using this stuff. It's called belly oil. It is made by this company called Hatch. It smells like grapefruit. It's lovely. You put a couple drops on your, you're supposed to rub it on your belly or your boobs or anything that's going to stretch and grow. And the theory is, you know, you're trying to prevent stretch marks. There's no really good data for this. So this is just something that like makes me feel good, like I'm doing something. But stretch marks are a largely genetic occurrence. They happen in like 40 to almost 90% of pregnancies. And the studies on what is helpful has been very mixed. There's tons of things that are marketed to prevent stretch marks, cocoa butter, this gadget and that different cream. And the studies actually show that cocoa butter and olive oil do not help prevent stretch marks. There is some data that maybe almond oil can help, which I think this has like a little bit of almond oil in it. There are things you can do after pregnancy that help, you know, once you have the stretch marks, like laser or some different retinols, which of course you can't be using during pregnancy. But most of it just has to do with genetics, honestly. And so I'm trying to not gain weight super fast, pray I have decent genetics, and then I'm rubbing this oil on my belly. To see what happens. Other things that I'm loving. I've started really like suiting up for work. I put on my compression socks and I put on my belly band. And it really helps. I, around week 24 to 26, this is my belly band. It's very simple. This is made by AZ Med. One of my best girlfriends who had a baby just before me sent this to me because she said it saved her when she was pregnant. And anyway, around week 24 to 26, I started noticing I had SI joint pain. So sacroiliac joint. It's kind of where your hip bones come together with your tailbone in your back. And if I would stand for a long time or be walking around a lot, I just noticed at the end of the day that my SI joints really, really were sore. So I would make my husband give me nice lower back massages and I would wear this belt. And I felt like that really helped temper it on days I was gonna be up and on my feet all day. So it felt really super glamorous to put on my compression socks, put on my little pregnancy belt and go off to work. But you know, sexy can I? It helped. So I've kept doing it. I will say I did take a pretty significant break from exercising for about three weeks or so when I was studying for my board exam. And when I mean take a break, I took a break. I didn't do anything. I sat and studied for hours and hours a day. And I felt like it wrecked my pelvis. I ended up when I kind of got done and got up and started moving around again, my hips hurt so bad. My pubic symphysis was having really bad pubic symphysis pain. And so my other really strong recommendation or like pleading with you is to keep moving and keep active. And just after that happened, I said, you're an idiot, Sarah. And started doing my exercises again and stretching. I'm actually doing a challenge like this birth like a boss challenge. It's done by the vagina coach, Kim Vapne. And it's this little app and every day it pops up and says you have these different exercises to do and these different stretches. And that has helped keep me accountable for doing some stretching and moving and exercising. And just from getting off my butt and doing some of these exercises, it's completely improved my pelvic pain, my symphysis, pubic dysfunction. My SI joint pain is basically gone. But I definitely feel like I did it to myself from just sitting around with terrible posture. So like I said, my posture was pretty terrible and I've really worked on self-correcting that. I have also been doing kind of an online course about pelvic, like your pelvic floor and posture. And that is through the vagina coach. As I said before, her name's Kim Vapne. She has this great online course. It's called Prepare to Push. And it focuses a lot on your posture, your pelvis, your breath, and different things. And then kind of complimentary to that is the Birth Like a Boss Challenge that I was telling you about, the exercises I'm doing at night. So I have, even as an OB-GYN, I have learned a lot from taking this pelvic floor and birth class because it's just not something we focus on a lot in our OB-GYN training. And I think it's incredibly, incredibly important for birth and pelvic floor health in the future. And so if that is something that you guys are interested in or have the resources to do, I highly recommend it. I will put a link to the vagina coach, Kim Vapne's information in the description below. It's been a great course. I really like it. And that's one of the other things I've been doing. Other things that have been fun are like doing some baby prep. We have a crib. We have a changing table. We have a little rocking chair. I have a pair of rain boots for her. Essentials, obviously. Kurt was like, she doesn't need rain boots. And every single mom I've talked to says she needs rain boots. I mean, you have to see these things. I mean, what little girl doesn't want rainbow rain boots? Am I right? Anyway, it's been fun to start to gather some of those things. We still need to get a car seat and get some other baby essentials. Some of the moms and friends on Instagram gave us some really great feedback on what makes great, what you really, really need for baby. And so we are gonna do an episode all about like the baby gear and baby essentials and things that you need. So look for that to be coming out soon too. Other things about the second trimester, it's just, it really is kind of a sweet spot. Everything kind of settles out. I mean, I sleep through the night most of the time. I don't have to get up and pee. I know that's gonna go away in the third trimester once she starts taking up more room. But I mean, she's moving around like a wild woman. A lot of times we spend our nights just washing my belly and watching her move, which is super fun. So you just like feel pregnant. You mostly feel pretty good. Toward the end of the second trimester, my body definitely started hurt, but that's getting better with movement. And we need to start thinking about who our pediatrician is gonna be. I've told Kurt, he's the pediatrician, that's his job. He hasn't done it yet, but we have some time still. And we're starting to think about birth and our hospital and our birth plan or our thoughts about birth. So we'll be doing an episode coming up about birth plans too. And as an OB-GYN, kind of what I think about that. So keep your eyes peeled for that one. The final thing I think that comes up with anyone who's pregnant right now is just COVID. And COVID still sucks. It still makes prenatal care very isolating and pregnancy kind of isolating. Your partner doesn't get to come to most of the visits. And yeah, it sucks. So I know for any appointment that I've gone to that Kurt couldn't come to, which is most of them, and there was an ultrasound or something, I've either tried to take some video or FaceTime him in or have asked the stenographer to print us lots of pictures. And we have just sheets and sheets and sheets of pictures of this cute little baby girl. Like look at her little face. But everybody, everyone, your doctor, the person doing your ultrasound, the nurses, they know that it sucks. And so want to try to make it as good an experience for you as they can. And so if that means printing 25 pictures, they're usually really happy to do that. So that is kind of the recap of the second trimester. I hope that if you are chugging along here with us, on this journey, your pregnancy is treating you well. Stay tuned with us in the coming weeks. We are going to cover everything to get you ready for birth. Birth plans, vaginal delivery, C-sections, epidurals, pain options for pregnancy, you know, GBS screening, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, just all sorts of pregnancy topics. So you feel informed and like, you know, kind of what is coming and what to expect. And it's gonna be great. So we will see you soon. If you have not subscribed to our channel, please do so you can follow along. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. If you have any tips for how you survived the second trimester or anything that you really loved, please leave that in the comments below too for the other mamas who are watching these videos. Have a great day. We're doctors. But not your doctors. Anything we've said in this video is for education or entertainment purposes only. It is not medical advice. Any specific medical questions you have should be directed to your provider.