Early Pregnancy Symptoms

If you have been trying to get pregnant, or think you might be as they say “in the family way”, there are many ways beyond missing your period to start detecting early symptoms of pregnancy, and they all depend on listening to your body.

Early pregnancy symptoms can be both physical and emotional, and most occur to women early on in pregnancy, usually within the first couple of weeks. Usually pregnancy is signaled by a missed period, but you could already be three or four weeks into being pregnant by the time this happens. A better method for the early detection of pregnancy is to listen to your body. More often that not, symptoms will start to occur as early as a few days after conception, and will more than likely imitate the signs of menstruation. You might start to feel tired all the time, or maybe even nauseous, or you might feel like you have to urinate more than normal.

With most women, the early stages of pregnancy are noticeable by the fact that their breasts might feel swollen or tender, the expecting mother might also have a constant headache, or might bleed a little, as well. Mood swings are also common and this is why women usually rely on a missed period as a pregnancy indicator, since these symptoms usually occur monthly during a period cycle, which is why they're often overlooked as a sign of early pregnancy. In other cases some women might also feel like they're coming down with the flu.

Bleeding happens as part of the early stage known as Implementation, or when the egg becomes fertilized and attaches to the lining of the uterus. But this early bleeding usually stops within a shorter time than a normal period, and it is usually spotty. This spotting can be as early as ten days after becoming pregnant, but not all women bleed and not all women miss a period. For that reason, if you have been trying to get pregnant but are still having periods, it's a good idea to get tested anyway regardless of nagging thoughts, just as a precaution.

Another subtle sign of early pregnancy might be an aversion to certain types of food or smells that trigger nausea, or a sudden craving for certain types of food, especially sweet or salty types of foods should be noticed and taken under consideration. Constipation can also occur early on in pregnancy, and is often the result of an increased level of progesterone which makes food digest more slowly through the intestines.

If you think you might be pregnant, review whether or not you've been having any of these symptoms within the last week or two. The body often changes in ways that are just subtle enough to be missed by women that are used to menstruation symptoms and its cycle, so it is important to raise your awareness of early pregnancy symptoms by focusing on these warning signs. Getting tested for pregnancy at the first signs can ensure that a consistent program of prenatal care is put in place for the health of you and the baby.