The Beauty Department

Here's the inside scoop on how your hair, your nails, and your skin change during pregnancy—and what you can do to maximize the natural beauty of pregnancy.

Your hair

If you’ve spent your entire life craving the secret to a full, lush head of hair, you’ve just stumbled upon it: pregnancy hormones! The hormonal changes of pregnancy cause you to stop shedding hair at your usual rate, so you can end up with really thick-looking hair. (During the first few weeks after the birth, you’ll shed all the extra hair that you accumulated during pregnancy, so make the most of your shampoo model-like head of hair while you've got it.)

Your nails

Your nails will also be affected by the hormonal changes of pregnancy. On the upside, they’ll grow more quickly. On the downside, they’ll tend to be dryer and more brittle. You can deal with the dryness problem by applying moisturizer to your hands and nails at bedtime and by wearing gloves when you’re washing dishes; and you can address the brittleness problem by keeping your nails cut short. (Short nails are less likely to chip and break.)

Your skin

While some women find that their skin looks its best when they are pregnant (that much-talked-about pregnancy glow), others find that fluctuating pregnancy hormones trigger acne breakouts that may them flashbacks to their high school days. And at the same time that they’re battling breakouts, they may be dealing with extremely dry and itchy skin on their belly. Go figure!

Chloasma—the so-called “mask of pregnancy”—is another common pregnancy complaint, occurring in about 70 percent of moms-to-be. This butterfly-shaped area of pigmentation around the nose and the eyes is triggered by the hormonal changes of pregnancy. Chloasma becomes more pronounced when your skin becomes exposed to the sun, so you can minimize its appearance by wearing a sunscreen with an SPF factor of 30 (the rating recommended for Canadians) anytime you head outdoors.

Did you know? Your moles, freckles, and scars are likely to become more noticeable during pregnancy, and you may develop a thin dark brown line—the linea nigra—that extends down the centre of your belly from your belly button to your pubic area.