How to Prevent Strech Marks

Eat a skin-nourishing diet. You're probably already eating healthy, balanced meals to make sure your baby is getting enough vitamins and nutrients. Incorporating foods that are especially beneficial for the health of your skin can improve your skin's elasticity, which helps prevent stretch marks from forming. Add the following foods to your daily diet:


Foods rich in antioxidants, which help nourish and protect skin. Eat plenty of spinach, blueberries, strawberries, and other fresh fruits and vegetables.

• Foods containing vitamin E, which protects skin cell membranes. Eat nuts, seeds, avocados broccoli, and collard greens.
• Foods containing vitamin A, which repairs skin tissues. Eat carrots, sweet potatoes, mango, squash, and red bell peppers.
• Foods containing omega 3s, which keep cell membranes healthy and make your skin glow. Eat fish, fish oil, walnuts, eggs and oysters.

Stay hydrated. Water helps detoxify your body and keeps your skin cells plump, which makes your skin healthier and more likely to bounce back from the stress caused by stretching. Get plenty of water by practicing these habits:

• Drink 8 glasses of water a day. If you find it difficult to ingest this much water, carry a large water bottle that holds the equivalent of 2 glasses (16 ounces) of water. Refill it 4 times throughout the day, rather than having to refill a single glass 8 times. It will make drinking enough water less of a hassle.
• Drink herbal tea. Choosing teas without caffeine helps your body stay hydrated, and can alleviate the boredom of drinking only water every day.
• Eat watery fruits and vegetables. Eating vegetables that contain a lot of water is another great way to hydrate yourself. Eat big salads filled with cucumbers, fresh bell peppers, and celery. Choose watermelon, strawberries, honeydew, and other watery fruits instead of eating baked desserts.

Exercise during pregnancy. Exercising helps the skin retain its elasticity by improving your body's circulation. As an added benefit, exercise will help prevent you from gaining too much weight, too quickly, nipping stretch marks in the bud. Incorporate exercise into your daily schedule in the following ways:

• Perform exercises meant to make pregnancy easier on your body. Stretches, kegel exercises, and other simple movements can help keep your blood moving and keep you more comfortable during pregnancy.
• Try pregnancy yoga and other low-impact exercises. Yoga and pilates give you an excellent workout without requiring you to move in ways that may feel uncomfortable while you're pregnant.

Gain weight gradually. Stretch marks happen when you gain a lot of weight, fast. If you follow your doctor's guidelines for gaining weight gradually, rather than putting on your pregnancy weight all at once, you greatly reduce the chance that you'll end up with stretch marks.

1. • Avoid "eating for two." You should be eating more calories that you did before you were pregnant, but not twice as many.
   • When you feel cravings coming on, have a little taste of the food you really want - say, ice cream - and a hefty serving of strawberries or fruit. You'll satisfy your palate and feel full.