Video transcript
Changes during pregnancy: second trimester
This is a transcript of the Raising Children Network video available at
http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/changes_second_trimester_video.html. In this
video some mums describe how they felt during the second trimester of pregnancy. A
midwife says nausea and tiredness might ease. Women will look more pregnant and feel
that the pregnancy is really happening. One dad says seeing his partner’s belly helped
him start forming an attachment to the baby.
Professor Hannah Dahlen [Midwife and midwifery scholar, University of Western
Sydney]: In the second trimester women are probably focussing a little bit more on the
fact that they’re actually having a baby; they’re thinking about things like what room is
the baby going to go into, what kind of mum am I going to be? They’ve started to
perhaps do antenatal classes, so they’re getting a little bit more information. They’re
getting to know their health provider, hopefully, and getting more and more informed,
and they’re starting to have conversations with mothers and sisters and other friends
about birth, which they may not have had those conversations in the first 12 weeks
because some women want to kind of keep the pregnancy quiet.
Physical changes
Professor Hannah Dahlen: The nausea, generally, eases off. The sense of tiredness
can ease. Women often feel much better and they feel much more pregnant. Women
seem to start to feel quite glowing and generally it’s probably the most healthy and wellest period in pregnancy.
Sevim [mother of Ada (4 years) and Kaan (9 months)]: The hormones are settling more
in the second trimester, and it’s like it’s the time that you actually start enjoying the
pregnancy.
Ellen [mother of Austin (11 months)]: You start feeling the baby move for the first time
and you start getting a few of those flutters and kicks and I guess, for the first few
times, you think ‘oh is that the baby or is that gas?’ but eventually you realise ‘oh it is
the baby’ and that’s very exciting.
Tenisha [mother of Ray (18 months)]: Just physical changes like my boobs just were
getting bigger, starting to get a bit sore. I found that my nails and my hair was growing
a lot more and a lot quicker.
Skye [mother of Mary (7 months)]: One thing for me, I could feel my hips and my ribs
starting to widen, so I used to have to stretch in the middle of the night up the wall
because my ribs really hurt.
Finikias [father of Austin (11 months)]: She did keep on vomiting, but now her body
shape was actually changing, which was perfect because I think you begin to form
somewhat of an attachment to the foetus because you see that there is a belly there.
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Tenisha: The biggest physical changes for me were starting to show and just clothes
that I’m used to wearing, they were getting a lot tighter. It was a struggle to kind of feel
as good as I wanted to.
Skye: I think the best thing you can do is – to feel good about yourself – is actually buy
maternity clothes; like buy clothes that will lend to the changes in your body, and you
can put you favourite jeans away and just accept that it’s not the time for them now,
and then embrace the change.
Professor Hannah Dahlen: Physical symptoms that you might need to go and seek
help about are, for example, if you have severe headaches or if you have spots in front
of your eyes; if you suddenly get a lot of swelling; important to make sure that your
blood pressure hasn’t gone up; any bleeding, again, you should seek help with. But
other than that all the general aches and pains that you get during pregnancy are
usually quite normal.
Emotional and thinking changes
Professor Hannah Dahlen: During the second trimester there’s, I guess, what we call
a settling-into-it. You’re starting to look pregnant, you’re starting to feel less sick, you’re
starting to feel less tired, you’ve usually come to terms with it, it’s a time when often
you will have an ultrasound done that will tell you that everything’s okay with the baby,
so you tend to relax into it and start to really think about becoming a mum, and society
out there is starting to recognise you’re pregnant and they’re reinforcing it.
Tenisha: During that second trimester I felt I was able to control myself a lot more
emotionally. I really made sure - and it was really pushed on me by the midwives and
also by my family - I really wanted to take care of myself; if that was going to get a
massage, if that was going shopping by myself for a little bit, if that was just going to
the movies, going to dinner with my girlfriends. It was during that time I needed to
make sure that I was happy.
Ellen: I think the only negative emotions I had was in relation to body image, and the
ongoing nausea and vomiting. I think I felt pretty… and because I’d never had a baby
everyone would tell me ‘Oh it will be worth it, it’ll be worth it’, but there were probably
times where I thought ‘is it really going to be worth it, because I feel so terrible’ and I
felt so terrible for so long.
Finikias: And there was some exhaustion as well, because she was always throwing up
so she couldn’t do anything else, which meant that I had to step up looking after her. I
think at some point I was emotionally exhausted, which wasn’t fair because we did this
together so why should she carry the burden of having all the vomiting and physical
changes and I’m just the observer.
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Professor Hannah Dahlen: It’s really important that men also find that support. So
they may be in an environment where nobody has children; none of their siblings may
have had children. So it’s important, also, for dads to get that support and that network.
Skye: The support that I received was great. Because you do a midwife clinic at the
hospital, so depending, again, on your mode of care you’ll either see your private doctor
– you could end up seeing them fortnightly or monthly – but you can go there and share
any feelings, anything that you’re going through. The midwives will generally ask you
some questions.
Tenisha: If I felt like I ever needed help I would go seek help. It was always my first
priority, just to make sure my health and my mental state of mind – especially during
my pregnancy – was at its best.
Skye: Yes, you know you’re pregnant in the first trimester and it’s all very exciting, but
until you see that bump or you get that first kick it’s not— for me it wasn’t inherently
real.
Finikias: I think the reality of adjusting to being a parent actually hit me in the second
trimester, to be honest. Where we’d basically been in a relationship with each other
looking after each other’s needs throughout the period of the time we were together, but
now that she was about to have a baby you start thinking about ‘we probably need more
money; she’s probably going to be out of work for that period of time while he’s still an
infant, a baby’. You start thinking about what you need to get and we did, just after the
second trimester, start getting everything ready.
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