What Is Pregnancy Nose? What to Know About the Condition Trending on TikTok
Silhouette of pregnant woman
A new social media trend has parents showing off photos of an unexpected change before and after giving birth: pregnancy nose.
TikTok users have recently used the the hashtag #PregnancyNose to try and understand how their noses became noticeably larger during and after pregnancy compared to before.
Many celebrities have also opened up about their own experiences having pregnancy nose, including former Love & Hip Hop: New York star Cyn Santana, when she was expecting her first child with Joe Budden, and Chrissy Teigen, when she was expecting her second child with John Legend.
While pregnancy comes with a lot of physical changes, here's what to know about pregnancy nose, which is actually very common.
Pregnancy nose is a real symptom that can cause swelling or puffiness of the nose due to increased blood flow.
"The underlying reason is because of the hormones that are increased in pregnancy and those hormones cause dilation in vessels, which can result in more blood flow going to certain areas — and that's because we need it for the uterus," Dr. Christine Greves, a Florida-based OB-GYN, told Today. "It's not necessarily selective. So, some areas of our body that have mucous membranes do experience increased flow and your nose is one of them."
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Greves noted that although some people may be bothered by the change, it goes back to normal within six weeks of giving birth.
Dr. Shannon M. Clark, a professor in maternal-fetal medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, explained to NBC News that the symptom is very common.
"There's typical physiological changes of pregnancy that occur in everyone, the first being basal dilation, where you have dilation of the blood vessels of the body," she said, noting she also experienced pregnancy nose. "I had it when I was pregnant with my twins. That's why my nose wasn't only swollen but it was more red."
Clark told the outlet that while pregnancy nose isn't harmful, pregnant people should contact their medical providers if they're experiencing swelling of the face and hands after 20 weeks, in addition to blurred vision and headaches, as it could be signs of preeclampsia.
Preeclampsia, also known as toxemia, is a pregnancy condition that can cause serious complications and is characterized by high blood pressure and signs of damage to another organ system, most often the liver and kidneys.
It typically develops suddenly in women who previously had normal blood pressure after the 20-week pregnancy mark, Mayo Clinic says. Besides sudden weight gain and swelling, symptoms may include severe headaches, shortness of breath, nausea, upper abdominal pain, blurred vision, impaired liver and kidney function and decreased urine output.
Experts also warn of believing everything they see on social media as a lot of pregnancy misinformation can be spread.
"Social media can be very helpful when taken with a grain of salt," Clark said.
