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Lightning crotch. Yes, lightning crotch. That's a real thing pregnant people experience, and it's about as bad as you're probably imagining.
The record number of babies birthed at one time, the oldest person to give birth, and so much more on today's episode of The List Show, all about pregnancy
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20 Surprising (and Horrifying) Facts About Pregnancy | Mental Floss
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0:00
Pregnant people have to deal with a lot of aches and pains, from sore backs to contractions
0:05
They also have to deal with something called lightning crotch, a sudden, sharp pelvic pain
0:10
Lightning crotch doesn't mean labor has started, and it usually isn't serious
0:14
It's thought to be caused by the fetus's position within the birthing parent's body
0:19
As the fetus lowers towards the end of its third trimester, its head puts more pressure on the pregnant parent's cervix and the nerves within the uterus
0:26
Lightning crotch is not to be confused with the ring of fire, which is the burning pain some people feel when the baby crowns during birth
0:34
Hi, I'm Erin McCarthy, Editor-in-Chief of Mental Floss, and Lightning Crotch is just the first surprising and occasionally horrifying fact about pregnancy we'll cover today
0:42
Let's get started. The average human pregnancy lasts about 280 days, or 40 weeks
0:54
Doctors calculate how far along a pregnancy is based on the first date of the person's last menstrual period
1:00
So saying someone is 30 weeks pregnant means it's been 30 weeks since they started their last period, not since they conceived
1:06
The idea that a baby will make their grand arrival sometime within the 40th week isn't very accurate
1:12
In the 19th century, an obstetrician named Frederick Nagel came up with a formula to calculate a pregnant person's estimated due date based on their menstrual cycle
1:19
It's fairly simple. Just go back three months from the date of their last menstrual period, then add one year and seven days
1:26
That puts their due date about 40 weeks from their last period. But there's a big flaw in his logic
1:32
Nagel's rule assumes the pregnant person ovulates on the 14th day of a regular 28-day menstrual cycle
1:38
Most menstrual cycles, however, range between 23 to 35 days. And even if someone does get their period every 28 days on the dot
1:46
when they actually ovulate within that cycle can still vary a bit. Still, that doesn't mean that due dates are meaningless
1:52
Over 90% of babies are born within two weeks of their estimated due dates
1:56
People who ovulate tend to be the most fertile between their late teens and late 20s, and
2:01
their fertility is typically still fairly good in their early 30s. Risks do increase for people over 35 years old
2:08
And though pregnant people who are 35 years or older are considered to be of advanced maternal
2:12
age, which used to be referred to as geriatric pregnancy, WTF, that doesn't mean getting
2:18
pregnant in your late 30s or even 40s is impossible. In 1997 a British woman named Dawn Brooke set the world record when she gave birth at 59 years old She holds the record for the oldest known person to have gotten pregnant without medical intervention though she was on hormone replacement therapy at the time She isn the oldest known person to have ever given birth
2:38
In 2019, a woman made headlines when she gave birth at age 74 after getting pregnant via in vitro fertilization
2:45
In May 2021, a woman named Halima Cis welcomed nine, yes, nine, babies into the world
2:51
For most of her pregnancy, she was totally unaware that she was carrying non-nouplets
2:55
Doctors initially thought Cis was carrying seven fetuses, but after going to a specialist
3:00
clinic in March of 2021, doctors discovered two other fetuses within her womb
3:05
Cis delivered all nine babies via C-section when she was 30 weeks pregnant
3:10
Amazingly, every single one of them survived. The nanouplets, four boys and five girls, remained in Morocco for 19 months before finally
3:18
heading home to Mali. As the fetus grows, it causes a person's abdominal muscles to stretch
3:23
That stretching can eventually cause their belly button to pop or become so stretched out that it
3:29
seems to just disappear entirely. Going from an innie to an outie usually doesn't hurt, though some
3:34
people suffer from mild irritation when their new outie belly buttons start rubbing against their
3:38
clothing. A person's belly button will typically go back to normal once they're a few months
3:43
postpartum. In addition to a brand new outie belly button, some people will also notice a dark stripe
3:48
stretching vertically across their abdomen. It's called the linea nigra, or black line
3:54
Everyone has a linea alba, a strip of connective tissue that runs between the left and right side
3:59
of the rectus abdominis. The linea alba is particularly visible on people with a shredded
4:03
six-pack. It's what causes the groove between the two sides of their abs. When a person gets pregnant
4:09
hormone shifts cause the connective tissue to darken and become the linea nigra. Morning sickness
4:15
the nausea and vomiting some people experience during pregnancy, is a misnomer. It can actually
4:21
last all day. It's believed 70% of people who are pregnant suffer from the condition
4:26
Morning sickness usually starts within the first month and lasts throughout the first trimester
4:31
though some people will experience it throughout their entire pregnancy. Doctors still don't know what exactly causes it, though recent research has pointed toward
4:39
a hormone called GDF15, which, according to new scientists, may have evolved to trigger
4:44
food aversion in response to, say, poisoning. But this is still early days. Morning sickness
4:50
though annoying, is supposed to be fairly mild. People who suffer from extreme vomiting and
4:55
nausea are usually diagnosed with a condition called hyperemesis gravidarum, which Kate
4:59
Middleton the Princess of Wales had during her three pregnancies Pregnant people aren just growing a fetus They also growing an entirely new organ Like the fetus the placenta also grows inside the uterus
5:11
The placenta was long referred to simply as afterbirth, as it's delivered after the baby is born
5:16
But the organ is crucial during pregnancy. 20% of a pregnant person's blood goes through the placenta to the fetus
5:23
The placenta is how the fetus gets nutrients and oxygen, and also how waste is removed from its blood
5:28
It's no small organ, either. By the time a baby is born, the average placenta is about 10 inches
5:34
long and 1 inch thick. Some people even eat their placentas for its supposed health benefits
5:39
such as its alleged ability to increase energy and milk supply, though there is no concrete scientific evidence to back up those claims
5:46
Experts at the Mayo Clinic warn against consuming the placenta, citing the risk of bacterial infections. Growing a new human and a new organ requires
5:55
a pregnant person's organs to shift around quite a bit. An average non-pregnant uterus is often
6:00
compared to the size of a lemon. But by the time a baby's due, it'll grow to be roughly the size
6:04
of a watermelon, and weigh about two pounds. All that growth requires some serious internal
6:09
rearrangements. A pregnant person's uterus pushes downward onto the bladder, making them have to
6:14
pee more often. It also pushes upward to smoosh the stomach and intestines, which can cause heart
6:19
burn and make it hard to eat a lot of food at once. The way it squishes a person's lungs in
6:23
the final trimester can also cause them to feel out of breath. Fortunately, all those organs will
6:28
typically return to their proper places within a few months of the baby's birth. A pregnant person
6:34
releases a lot of a hormone called relaxin. This causes their joints and ligaments to loosen and
6:39
shift in preparation for labor. But sometimes that loosening goes a bit too far. Some pregnant people
6:44
suffer from symphysis pubis dysfunction, which means their pubic symphysis has separated. It's
6:50
It's the joint between a person's left and right pelvic bones. Though the condition isn't dangerous, it can be incredibly painful
6:57
Speaking of changing organs, pregnancy also alters a person's brain. The gray matter, that is the tissue that's crucial for day-to-day function, shrinks in
7:05
the areas of the brain that are responsible for responding to social signals
7:09
According to a 2016 study, it's believed this may make the parts of a birthing parent's
7:13
brain that handle responding to their baby's needs work more efficiently. It allows the parent's brain to become more specialized and efficient
7:20
Those brain changes aren't as short-lived as other pregnancy symptoms. They were shown to last for at least two years
7:27
That isn't the only potentially permanent change a person may encounter. All those hormones can make some people hair change texture and go from straight to curly or vice versa And some people will wind up with an entirely new shoe size thanks to the way pregnancy can cause their feet to flatten and widen
7:42
Sure, a pregnancy only lasts nine months, but tiny parts of the fetus will stay with the birthing
7:47
parent forever. Birthing parents have become what some have dubbed genetic chimeras. Fetal cells
7:53
escape from the placenta and enter their body, where they linger for a long time. They circulate
7:58
throughout the birthing parent's body and can even embed in their tissues and organs. Those
8:02
wayward fetal cells can cause problems for the birthing parent. They've been associated with
8:07
issues like autoimmune diseases and preeclampsia, a potentially life-threatening blood pressure problem that can develop during pregnancy. But the fetal cells may also be helpful. It's thought
8:16
they may be able to protect against breast cancer and heart attacks, and heal wounds. But much of
8:21
this evidence is both lacking and inconsistent, which is a rough combination. The human body will
8:27
often try to reject foreign tissue, which is why transplant patients are often given
8:31
medication to prevent their immune system from attacking their new organ. The body will produce chemokines, which recruit immune cells to go on the attack
8:39
That doesn't happen with a pregnancy though. Instead, once the embryo implants in a person's uterus, it turns off the genes inside the
8:46
decidua—the mucous membrane that lines the uterus—that would ordinarily trigger a person's immune system to attack the new foreign object
8:54
We'll end with this fun detail you probably won't hear many people mentioning when
8:57
recalling their birth experiences. S*** happens. Literally. Many people poop during labor. It makes
9:03
sense that it would happen. The muscles people use during a bowel movement are the same ones
9:08
they use while pushing during labor. The baby's position can also determine whether a person will
9:12
poop or not. If the baby is face up instead of face down in the birth c, their body will
9:18
push more against the birthing parent's intestines, likely stimulating a bowel movement
9:23
Pooping during labor seems embarrassing and generally unpleasant, but it's thought to help
9:27
the newborn by upping the amount of fecal bacteria that the baby comes into contact with. This little
9:32
taste of the birthing parent's fecal microbes can improve the baby's gut microbiome. Those born via
9:37
c-section aren't exposed to the blend of microbes hanging around the birthing parent's perineum
9:42
which is thought to put them at higher risk for immune-related disorders later in life
9:46
Oh, and if a person is hooked up to an IV for fluids while in labor, they'll probably pee a lot
9:51
too. And if a person has had an epidural and can't pee on their own, a nurse will likely have to
9:55
empty their bladder with a catheter, as the full bladder could block the baby's progress
9:59
through the birth c
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