Pregnancy

I feel "bigger" down there. Is that normal?

Absolutely. Pregnancy leads to a huge increase in blood volume and consequently to swelling of both the veins under the labia (lips of the vagina) and the soft tissues. The lining of the vagina becomes thicker, more vascular, and the connective tissue loosens. Smooth muscle in the wall hypertrophys (enlarges) as well.

The flow through both the veins and the lymphatic vessels around the vagina are relatively obstructed on their return to the heart by the basketball in your pelvis, leading to more swelling. Some women even develop varicosities with tortuous, dilated vessels throughout the outer vaginal area.

I'm 14 weeks pregnant and my back is hurting me! Is there anything I can do to make myself feel better?

Back pain is one of the single most consistent complaints in pregnancy. In the late first and early second trimester (10 to 17 weeks), low back pain may be due to compression of the growing uterus between your sacrum and your pubic bone. In other words, the uterus is growing in the confined space of your pelvis from its normal size of a large walnut to the size of a large grapefruit.

By about 15 to 17 weeks, the uterus pops up into the abdomen and all the pressure in your low back and on your bladder disappears suddenly. That urge to urinate all the time combined with very low back pain will not usually return until the mid to late third trimester when the baby's head has become as large as the uterus was at 15 weeks and descends into the pelvis.