Acne During Pregnancy

During pregnancy, acne is unpredictable. For some lucky women, the result is a welcome surprise — clear skin, the "glow of pregnancy" that you were told about. If this is your case, enjoy it! But don't get overconfident. When existing acne virtually disappears during pregnancy, it often recurs afterward — sorry!

 

However, existing acne can also get worse. Pregnancy is a time of tremendous hormonal upheaval. Your levels of estrogen and progesterone are rising, and your skin becomes more sensitive to the changes in the circulating hormones in your body. In fact, some women may experience acne for the first time when they become pregnant, even if they never had acne during their teens.

 

Acne is a perfectly normal occurrence during pregnancy (more common than most women realize), whether you have previously had acne or not. There's no way to prevent it from developing during pregnancy, but be patient and, with time, your skin will probably clear up and return to its natural, pre-pregnancy state.

 

Lesions during pregnancy are generally inflammatory in their appearance and typically take the form of papules, pustules, and sometimes nodules.

 

Acne tends to be worse during the first trimester (the first three months) of pregnancy when the levels of these hormones are increasing. Your progesterone is more androgenic (male hormonelike) than estrogen and causes the secretions of your skin glands to increase, which can lead to more acne. There are also times when your sebaceous glands go into high gear during the first, second, and third trimesters, causing even more frequent and serious breakouts.

 

When breastfeeding, some of the hormones that trigger your acne during pregnancy may still be at work, and you may wish to continues treating those pesky pimples. But be aware, that certain medications taken by mouth or applied to your skin may wind up in your breast milk.

 

Some women pass through menopause without outgrowing their acne. Yes — acne during and after menopause! Just when you felt certain that the years of pimples have faded from your skin and your memory, they're back! No, you're not going through a second adolescence, it's those pesky hormones again! Although hormonally influenced acne typically begins around age 20 to 25, acne can persist in women over the age of 40 and continue into the perimenopausal and menopausal periods.

 

Along with all the other changes that you go through during this time, acne just seems to add insult to injury. Post-menopausal acne isn't a common occurrence, but when estrogen levels begin to taper off and testosterone becomes the dominant hormone, acne — usually mild — can appear.