Surprising differences between singleton and twin pregnancies

Wondering how different a twin pregnancy is compared to a regular one? Read some of the most surprising differences between singleton and twin pregnancies.

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Transcription:

I wanted to share a few surprising differences that set a twin pregnancy apart from a regular or what we call a "singleton" pregnancy.

I don't know if you know my story, but I had my eldest, so hat was my singleton pregnancy, my first.

It took a while for me to convince myself that I was ready for a supposedly second child. It was 2.5 years later. I thought I wanted 4 kids, but after that, I said I'm good with one. But over time, I said, Okay let's have a second one.

Even just a few weeks into that twin pregnancy, which for a weeks I didn't know that they were twins. I thought, "This feels weird. Maybe it's a girl." Little did I know I was actually carrying two.

I wanted to go over a few surprising differences that I had no idea happened with twin pregnancies.

The first is what I hinted at: early onset of pregnancy symptoms.

We're talking, even at 4 weeks, you're already so exhausted, it's fatigue times 2. I asked my doctor, and she said, "You're carrying 2 placentas that your body is making, double the amount of blood it has to produce." It's really working double time.

Any kind of fatigue you might explain from a singleton, you can expect to have double that with a twin pregnancy.

That's the first one. Early onset of symptoms. You're going to be more tired, likely going to have a bigger belly faster.

The second thing that surprised me was my doctor didn't recommend I exercise as much as I did with my eldest.

When you're pregnant with a singleton, generally it's good advice to keep up whatever exercise regimen you have, you might want to tweak it.

But when I asked my doctor, "I'm really exhausted, do I need to exercise? Is that as important as it was with the singleton?" And she said, "No, if you're exhausted, just rest. It's more important to rest than it is to push yourself."

I still remember during my work lunch breaks I would walk around the block. Within just walking 1 block, I was done. I saw this patch of grass, the kind you see on the sidewalk, and I was like, "Oh I wish it was socially acceptable to lie down right here."

I was so exhausted. At that point, that's when I realized this is for real. You really don't have to exercise as much as you did with a singleton.

Obviously everyone's different, I don't know what your arrangement is with your doctor. But I was surprised it wasn't as important as it was when I was carrying a singleton.

The third one is the amount of rest you need to do when you're carrying twins. Just being pregnant is already taxing as it is on your body, so you can imagine how it is carrying 2.

A lot of twin moms tell me, "I feel so bad just lying there, I'm so tired." And I say, "If you're pregnant with twins, you're supposed to consume 600 calories extra a day. Think about that. How much exercise do you need to do to burn 600 calories?"

It might not look like you're doing anything on the outside, you're just lying there on the couch because that's what feels right. But on the inside, your body is literally using up 600 calories a day. It's really exhausting, it's so important to rest.

And not to mention the potential complications you want to avoid. That was also surprising to me: how much I needed and wanted to rest during my twin pregnancy.

The fourth thing that surprised me was the amount of water I needed to drink.

My doctor recommended we're supposed to drink 1 gallon of water a day. In general they tell you to think 8 cups of water a day to be healthy. I thought, "Let me see if I can do this."

So I actually started measuring how much water I drank, and by the end of the day, I had just barely drank the 8 cups a normal person is supposed to drink. I don't drink soda, juice. It was water and tea for me, so I was really surprised that first of all I wasn't drinking the amount of water I should've been all this time.

That opened my eyes because I got a full gallon water bottle that was huge, so I could measure and track how much water I was drinking. I forced myself to drink it. That way I knew if I was cool. I was so surprised to drink 1 gallon of water.

Видео Surprising differences between singleton and twin pregnancies канала Nina Garcia