Feet And Leg Swelling During Pregnancy

The baby had a huge effect on my wife's feet and legs during her pregnancy. How bad was it, how did we reduce the swelling (also called edema), and how is she now?

How bad was it?

Anecdotally...pretty awful. The swelling looked terrible and it was very painful for her. Her legs from roughly the knee down were warm to the touch.

Non-anecdotally, her shoe size went from a 5.5 to a 7.5. This became noticeable at roughly seven months into the pregnancy. Here's a photo comparing her pregnancy shoes (left) with her normal shoes (right):

Here's a photo of her with swollen legs during the pregnancy:

She was having difficulty with her job because of the amount of walking she had to do.

How did we reduce the swelling?

We used three main things that ended up being effective:

• She wore compression stockings at work
• I massaged her legs at night
• She slept and relaxed with her lower body on an inclined pillow

For the massages, she would prop her feet up, and I would apply a decent amount of pressure and push from her toes to her knees. We did this most nights once we noticed the swelling becoming an issue.

I unfortunately did not track any data around this, but anecdotally her swelling was noticeably better after one week and was a complete non-issue after 3 weeks.

How is she now?

She's had no long-term side effects that we can tell. As I noted above, the swelling went down significantly pre-birth, and was completely gone when we left the hospital. It's been almost two years now so I would assume any long-term side effects would have shown up by now. Thus, I think it's safe to say that the baby had a huge effect on my wife's leg swelling during the pregnancy, we successfully managed it, and the swelling had no obvious, long-term effects on my wife's legs. To wrap it up, here is a photo of her wearing her pregnancy shoes while pregnant and then 21 months after birth:

While pregnant:

Now: