Fighting Pregnancy Acne

Before get­ting preg­nant, I’d always heard about “that preg­nancy glow.” Lit­tle did I know that the “preg­nancy glow” is caused by increased oil pro­duc­tion due to hor­mone fluc­tu­a­tions. For women who have oily or com­bi­na­tion skin, preg­nancy can mean a return of acne like you haven’t dealt with since high school.  For some women, preg­nancy can be the first time they’ve had to fight acne.

There are a lot of wives’ tales about how to deal with acne, as a clin­i­cal trial sta­tis­ti­cian, I thought I’d help weed through those tales and give you some tips on what has actu­ally been proven to work.

First, you need to know what you are deal­ing with.  Black­heads (open come­dones) and white­heads (closed come­dones or milia) are caused by oil trapped in clogged pores.  Black­heads are exposed to air, caus­ing the clog to oxi­dize, while white­heads are cov­ered over with skin.  Pim­ples are clogged pores where bac­te­ria has entered the clog and is feed­ing on the oil and dead skin cells, caus­ing pain and irritation.

The main thing needed to fight acne is gen­tle cleans­ing and exfo­li­a­tion.  Harsh cleans­ing and exfo­li­a­tion can actu­ally increase oil pro­duc­tion in the skin, caus­ing the acne to worsen.  Many cleansers claim­ing to fight acne actu­ally con­tain irri­tat­ing ingre­di­ents to make them “feel” like they are work­ing.  Skin care prod­ucts should not cause your skin to tin­gle, that isn’t a sign it is work­ing, that is a sign that your skin is irri­tated.  After cleans­ing, your skin should feel clean and nor­mal, not dry, tight, or tingly.

Every­one reacts dif­fer­ently to ingre­di­ents, but com­mon skin­care ingre­di­ents that are irri­tat­ing include: ethanol, dena­tured alco­hol, ethyl alco­hol, methanol, ben­zyl alco­hol, iso­propyl alco­hol, sd alco­hol, ascor­bic acid, cam­phor, euca­lyp­tus, men­thol and peppermint.

Another com­mon mis­con­cep­tion is that eat­ing choco­late causes acne.  There is no evi­dence to back this up, but there is some recent evi­dence that high glycemic index foods may increase acne.  If you find exclud­ing a cer­tain food works for you, then it may be pos­si­ble that you have a sen­si­tiv­ity to that food.

Eat­ing well and stay­ing hydrated improves skin func­tion, which can have an affect on acne, so it is impor­tant to drink enough water and eat a healthy bal­anced diet high in antiox­i­dant rich foods.

Rec­om­mended skin care routine:

1. Use a gen­tle, water-soluble cleanser. I rec­om­mend using cleansers for­mu­lated for sen­si­tive skin rather than for oily or acne-prone skin, as they tend to not include irri­tat­ing or harsh ingre­di­ents.  I don’t rec­om­mend bar soaps, as the ingre­di­ents used to keep the soap in bar form can clog pores.  A few cleansers I rec­om­mend are: Boots Expert Sen­si­tive Gen­tle Cleans­ing Wash, Olay Foam­ing Face Wash for Sen­si­tive Skin, Paula’s Choice One Step Facial Cleanser for Nor­mal to Oily/Combination Skin, and The Body Shop Aloe Gen­tle Face Wash for Sen­si­tive Skin.  These aren’t the only good cleansers out there, look for fra­grance– and dye-free cleansers with­out irri­tat­ing ingre­di­ents.  If you have body acne, use a wash cloth to wash the affected areas morn­ing and evening.
2. Exfo­li­ate. Top­i­cal scrubs are often harsh, look for a gen­tle one, or just gen­tly mas­sage skin with a damp wash­cloth.  BHAs, or sal­i­cylic acids, are the best chem­i­cal exfo­liants for acne-prone skin.  Some peo­ple may be con­cerned because BHAs are related to aspirin (which is ver­boten dur­ing preg­nancy), but the amount absorbed through the skin into the blood stream is neg­li­gi­ble.  I like Paula’s Choice 2% Beta Hydroxy Acid Liq­uid because you can buy a pump spray from the site to screw onto the bot­tle, allow­ing you to spray the liq­uid onto hard to reach areas like the back.
3. Top­i­cal dis­in­fec­tant. There is no need to use a top­i­cal dis­in­fec­tant if you only have black­heads or white­heads, since there is no bac­te­ria involved in these block­ages, but if you are fight­ing pim­ples, you will want to include a top­i­cal dis­in­fec­tant in your skin care regime.  Ben­zoyl per­ox­ide and tea tree oil have both been shown to effec­tively dis­in­fect the skin, with ben­zoyl per­ox­ide being found more effec­tive than tea tree oil.
4. Remove block­ages. Gen­tly remov­ing black­heads, white­heads and pim­ples man­u­ally is pretty much the only way of quickly get­ting rid of them.  The key word in that sen­tence is gen­tly.  You can get a facial from a licensed esthet­i­can who does extrac­tions.  You can also buy a come­done extrac­tor tool to do this your­self at home, or you can cover two fin­ger­tips with tis­sues and gen­tly squeeze the pore to release the block­age.  Just be sure not to be too overzeal­ous remov­ing block­ages.  If it doesn’t budge with gen­tle pres­sure, it should not be removed.  You don’t want to dam­age the sur­round­ing skin or cause an infec­tion in the pore.
5. Sun expo­sure. One of the treat­ments Ger­man doc­tors rec­om­mended for fight­ing acne is 15 min­utes of unpro­tected sun expo­sure every day until the acne gets under con­trol.  Light ther­apy is a legit­i­mate treat­ment for acne, although in the US, it is gen­er­ally done with lasers.  Dur­ing my last preg­nancy, while gen­tle cleans­ing and exfo­li­a­tion helped, it wasn’t until I tried the sun expo­sure treat­ment that I com­pletely rid myself of body acne.  Ger­many is at a fairly north­ern lat­i­tude, so if you live nearer the equa­tor, I would rec­om­mend low­er­ing the time of unpro­tected sun expo­sure. Only you can decide if you’re will­ing to risk sun expo­sure.  Per­son­ally, I felt, given that I am of south­east Asian descent, have a medium skin tone, don’t burn hardly at all, and given the lim­ited time I would be doing it (just a few weeks), that it was an accept­able risk for me.

For advice fight­ing non-pregnancy related out­breaks, there are other options avail­able, I would rec­om­mend read­ing Paula Begoun’s advice on fight­ing acne at any age.  She also has a great blog post on how to cor­rectly pop a pim­ple.

Are you deal­ing with acne?  Do you have any advice?

You may also be interested in reading:

• When it's not just morning sickness: Living with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (17)
• Waiting for the Birth (5)
• Struggling with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG): Week 33 Update (2)
• Struggling with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG): Week 29 Update (3)
• Struggling with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG): Week 23 Update (14)

Tagged as: acne, acne prone skin, benzoyl peroxide, blackhead, body acne, cleanser, clogged pores, exfoliation, facial, fight acne, hormone fluctuation, pimple, Pregnancy, pregnancy acne, salicylic acid, skin care