Stretch marks occur when your skin stretches and loses elasticity. When you are pregnant, the skin around your belly stretches beyond its limits, and most often stretch marks are inevitable.
Women are always reminded to rub Shea butter or other types of oils on their belly while pregnant, but sometimes even doing that doesn’t stop those “tiger marks” from showing. Usually, the marks start out a bright reddish-purple, and overtime fade into white streaks.
How to prevent them?
The best tip is to oil up your belly from the day you find out your pregnant, all the way throughout your pregnancy. Even if you don’t see any stretch marks, you should keep that belly moisturized daily. It is very common for stretch marks to show up out of nowhere, especially the last months when weight gain occurs faster. Keeping your skin well hydrated is done to prevent stretch marks, but even then they might still show up. If this occurs, don’t get discouraged and continue applying lotion or oils to your belly to help in the fading process.
How to fade or get rid of them postpartum?
It’s very important to continue applying lotions or oils to your skin to help in the fading process of stretch marks. I noticed that Shea butter helped fade marks faster than bio oil postpartum. I applied Shea butter daily, twice a day. I also would apply bio oil once a day, immediately after taking a shower. By the time my daughter turned 7 or 8 months, my once red stretch marks had faded to a light glossy white shade that wasn’t very noticeable. I kept using the shea butter, and also started using coconut oil. Believe it or not, the coconut oil improved the marks fairly quickly. Below are the lotions and oils I applied during pregnancy and postpartum, and a few others that will also help with stretch marks. It’s a good idea to buy and try out a few lotions and oils to find the ones that best help your body.
There are a few medical procedures out there, specifically to remove stretch marks, but that is also attainable with daily use of oils and lotions. The difference is, the procedures tackle the marks immediately, as opposed to the creams and oils which take time. If you got stuck with stretch marks postpartum, and are looking to get rid of them; I highly recommend using oils and creams, even though it takes times you’ll end up saving money. Another tip is to remember a lot of women and even men have stretch marks. Stretch marks don’t just occur with pregnancy, but simply when skin is stretched due to weight gain on loss. Besides the fact you have some new marks, the best thing is to remember what those marks represent- your beautiful baby.
