hi everyone my name is dr sarah bjorkman i am an ob gyn and i am also just finishing up the second
trimester of pregnancy so as a first-time mom and an ob gyn 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 um you know you kind of get your energy back
most of the time you're not as nauseous constantly um you feel like exercising a little bit again but
then there's kind of like this lull um you're just kind of coasting along you know you hit 14 weeks
and you just kind of coast until 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 one percent um and you're just pregnant
you're feeling better um 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 um and so it's just this
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 um 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 ten fingers and ten toes and um it was
way fun i know for us and that's really kind of when things started start feel like they're moving
you're really pregnant you're starting to get this little bump um and then at 24 weeks you hit this
giant pregnancy milestone which is you know in the medical world an ob world 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 um so that is exciting
um we are going to have an episode kind of in the coming up soon all about viability what that
means what a nick you stay is like um 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 want to talk about some of that nitty-gritty with some of you
um just in case pre-term labor uh premature baby is something that you experience um 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 um 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 gluco test um
glucose tolerance test um 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 cut-off 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 um but if you
cannot um get 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 they're that's
how their body hands 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 um 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 um 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 um but stretch marks are
largely genetic um occurrence they happen in like 40 to almost 90 percent of pregnancies
and the studies on what is helpful has been very mixed um 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 um there are things you can do after pregnancy that help um you
know once you have the stretch marks like laser or some different retinols which of course you can't
be using during pregnancy um 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 um other things that i am loving um 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
azmed 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 s eye
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 slower back massages and i would wear this belt and i felt like that really
um helped temper it on days i was going to be up and on my feet all day so it felt really super
glamorous to put on my compression socks put on my my little pregnancy belt and go off to work but
you know sexy can i um it helped so i've kept doing it um 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 um
and studied for hours and hours a day and i felt like it wrecked my pelvis
i ended up when i got kind of got done and got up and started moving around again
my hips hurt so bad my pubic symphysis was i 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 um and just after that happened i said you're an idiot sarah um and started doing my
exercises again and stretching um i'm actually doing a challenge like this birth like a boss
challenge it's done by the vagina coach kim bopne and it's this little app and every day
it pops up and says you have these different exercises to do in 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 pelvic pain my symphysis pubis 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 um kind of an online course about
pelvic um like your pelvic floor and posture um and that is through the vagina coach as i said
before her name is kim bobney she has these this great online course it's called prepare to push
and it focuses a lot on your posture your pelvis your breath um and different things and then kind
of complementary to that is the birth like a boss challenge um 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 um for birth and pelvic floor health in the future
and so if that is something you guys are interested in or have the resources to do
i highly recommend it i will put a link um to the vagina coach um kim vopni's um information
in the description below it's been a great course i really like it um and that's
one of the other things i've been doing um other things that have been fun are like doing some baby
prep we have a crib um we have a changing table we have a little rocking chair i have a pair of
rain boots for her um essentials obviously um 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 um 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
um some of the moms and friends on instagram gave us some really great feedback on what makes
great you know 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 um
soon too other things about the second trimester it's kind it's just it really is kind of the sweet
spot everything kind of settles out i mean i slept i sleep through the night most the
time i don't have to get up and pee um i know that's going to 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 her nights just washing my belly and watching her move which is super fun
um so you just like feel pregnant you mostly feel pretty good um i in the at toward the end of the
second trimester my body definitely started hurt um but that's getting better with movement and
we need to start thinking about who our pediatrician is going to be i've told kurt
he's you know the pediatrician that's he his job
he hasn't done it yet um but we have some time still and you know 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
um coming up about birth plans too um 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 covered and covid still sucks it still makes prenatal care very isolating
and pregnancy kind of isolating you know your partner doesn't get to come to most of the visits
and yeah it sucks um so i know for any appointment that i've gone to that kurt couldn't come to which
is most of them um 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 like print us lots of pictures and we have
just you know sheets and sheets and sheets of pictures of this uh cute little baby girl like
look at her little face um but everybody everyone your doctor your the person doing
your ultrasound the nurses they know that it sucks and so want to try to make it as like
good an experience for you as they can and so if that means printing you know 25 pictures they're
usually really happy to do that so that is kind of the recap of the second trimester um i hope that
if you are chugging along here with us on this journey your pregnancy is treating you well uh
stay tuned with us in the coming weeks we are going to cover everything to get you
ready for birth um 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