Felin complained that her calves were painful on Christmas Eve. She shared about this nagging "muscle ache" like pain for the past 1 week which I message her legs every night. The pain are usually more pronounced during the night. I'm have been monitoring her legs and read up quite a bit because of this. However, after a week, she felt unsure and prefer to visit the GP to seek more information.
The GP instead of giving us any info, referred us to NUH A&E straight and when asked what could be the problem, she answered that she does not want to speculate and told us to go for further check-up. I believed that it shouldn't be something serious after reading quite a bit about muscle aches during late stage pregnancy.
From what I read, typically, the ache and swollen leg can be caused by fluid retention which is particularly pronounced in feet, ankles, and calves because the growing uterus puts pressure on the veins that carry blood back from the lower body. This partially blocks blood flow, keeping fluid in legs and feet. Blood vessels are also smallest in your foot and ankle so body has difficulty accommodating the extra fluid pouring in there.
Another possibility is symptoms of blood clotting. Pregnant woman are more prone of getting a blood clot because blood flows moving from the veins in legs to heart much more slowly due to pregnancy hormones and uterus (womb) getting larger as the baby grow. Or during this stage of pregnancy, veins can become slightly damaged as baby presses on the veins to pelvis
Of course, I'm aware that it could be Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT). DVT is a blood clot in a vein deep below the skin's surface. DVT can appear in the deep veins in the back of leg, or in thigh or pelvis. DVT can be dangerous but there is only a very small chance of getting it during pregnancy. Only one or two women in 1,000 will have one either during pregnancy or during the first six weeks after giving birth..
We discussed about it and we agreed that should the pain becomes unbearable or it persisted the next morning, we will go A&E.
Glad that Felin's legs got much better the next morning and we went to church Christmas service without any problem. Thank God that we need not go A&E and my funny thoughts about babies needing to come at Christmas Day, which is Felin's wish over the years to have a Christmas baby came true.
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