Winning the Epic Battle Against Stretch Marks
Tomorrow is my birthday! I will be 29 years old and on that magical day I will also be exactly 6 months pregnant, which puts me into my third trimester (though I’m still confused as to how 40 weeks splits evenly into 3 trimesters, someone please enlighten me). For my birthday I decided (among several other more thoughtful and less superficial birthday wishes) that I want a pregnancy with no stretch marks. Which of course makes it hard for buying me a gift, but I’ve been doing research that hopefully will help more of you than just the “smug pregnant women” who may be reading this blog.
Everyone is prone to stretch marks, especially teens and people who are in quick phases of growth or weight gain. Men get stretch marks too – especially those who are on workout programs that cause them to build muscle fast. Of course, male stretch marks on their arms because their arms just got too big for their body way too fast are still more charming than the stretch marks many of the women I know (myself included) share because hormones just made our thighs get bigger faster than our poor teenage skin could handle. But it’s worth it because like my mom used to say, “You’ll never be in a rap video if certain body parts don’t grow so fast that it creates microtears in your skin.” Okay, she didn’t say that but I hope I’ll be the kind of mom that says that to my teenage daughter.
Stretch marks are caused by microtears in the second layer of the skin created when it stretches too rapidly. Hence the name stretch marks. When these tears heal and repair, they sometimes leave silvery lines of scar tissue or if tiny amounts of blood leaked into the tears, the healing scar tissue may be a dark or purplish color. Here is some of the information I have found for preventing and even reversing existing stretch marks:
- Proper stretching and healing of skin is dependent on zinc. This is part of the reason that teens are so prone to stretch marks. Yes, they are growing really fast but they are also in a time of hormonal change, stress, and a tendency to eat more sugar and generally less nutritious food overall (at least when Mom is not looking) – all of which contribute to loss of zinc. Pregnancy is also a time of loss of zinc because that little parasite growing in your womb is taking it! In fact, over 80% of pregnant women worldwide are estimated to have inadequate zinc levels. Modern day low-fat and low-meat diets have greatly contributed to loss of zinc from the general population. To learn more about zinc and see a list of zinc rich foods, visit the Linus Pauling Micronutrient Information Center. If you are too lazy to do that, then I’ll just tell you that to get zinc in your diet, eat oysters, beef, and dark meat poultry. Vegetarians can include milk, almonds and spirulina but may want to think seriously about adding a zinc supplement or at least a multi that is rich in zinc (15 mg or more daily).
- Stretch marks can be prevented and reversed with topical zinc preparations. Most expensive creams and lotions intended for stretch mark and scar reversal usually contain zinc oxide as one of their active ingredients. Here is the beautiful thing I discovered last week at the drug store – Extra Strength Desitin, the diaper rash ointment, contains 40% zinc oxide! And it’s only like $6 for a tube. Needless to say, I bought a tube of it and have started using it on my belly to make sure the skin that is somehow going to stretch to unbelievable lengths will have enough zinc to do so. I haven’t gone super overboard on this, as the cream contains some preservatives that I’m not too excited about (namely BHT, which is also a food preservative so it can’t be TOO horrible) but half a teaspoon or less is plenty to get a good coat on. And the cream smells okay to me, but for my poor husband it just brings back memories of changing his little brothers’ diapers. Maybe not what you want to be associated with when you’re climbing into bed for the evening!
- Hydrated skin stretches more easily than dehydrated skin. I realize I am beginning to sound like Johnny One Note with my desire to make sure people are hydrated so I will just leave this bullet point at that. Hydrated skin stretches and is less likely to tear. So drink water.
- Coconut oil prevents stretch marks and helps fade existing stretch marks. I know – you are in shock and awe that I have worked coconut oil into this blog. But it’s true! I couldn’t find an actual study on coconut oil and stretch marks, but living here in Hawaii I have heard tons of anecdotal evidence from women of all shapes and sizes saying that coconut oil applied daily after showering prevented stretch marks. Also, several women had stretch marks from previous pregnancies and they noticed that these marks faded after using coconut oil. One reason coconut oil works better than other oils is that it is able to penetrate the skin to moisturize deeper layers of skin and prevent scar formation. Jojoba oil also has this property, but I prefer coconut oil personally because it is so heat stable (in other words, it can sit in my hot bathroom for months and I don’t have to wonder if it’s gone rancid) and it is less expensive per ounce than jojoba.
So that’s my research. Hopefully it will help you in the fight against stretch marks. I should design a ribbon or one of those ridiculous rubber bracelets for the Stretch Mark Awareness fund. Maybe a rubber band would do – they’re stretchy! And then I can charge you $10 to buy my rubber band bracelet to help support stretch mark awareness worldwide. Feel free to mail me a check if you want to participate and I will send you back an old and tired rubber band. It is my birthday, after all!
14 comments
Hi Jessica,
Would Weleda’s Baby Calendula Diaper Care cream that has 12% Zinc Oxide be helpful in the “battle against stretch marks”? Here are the Ingredients: Active ingredients: Zinc oxide 12%. Inactive ingredients: Beeswax, benzyl benzoate, benzyl salicylate, calendula flower extract, chamomile flower extract, geraniol, glyceryl linoleate, hectorite, lanolin, limonene, linalool, sweet almond oil, sesame seed oil, water.
It’s been very helpful with healing swollen, irritated skin…
Yes that would be great! Weleda makes great products in general, and zinc oxide is the same kind of zinc found in Desitin.
Hi Jessica,
Do you think your list of zinc, hydration and coconut oil would help good old-fashioned wrinkles?
Absolutely! The recommendations are good for healthy skin in general.
This is very interesting, thank you! I suspect you have had your baby by now, looking at the dates. Congratulations! I have a question about jojoba oil (although I’m already planning how to incorporate your other tips). I thought it was heat stable. I’ve kept it in my shower for years for use on skin and in the curl creme I make. I go through it pretty fast though. But I am worried now because I started buying it in bulk and storing it in a warm place. I got this from Answers.com, but perhaps you meant something different? “It does not oxidize or become rancid and does not break down under high temperatures and pressures. Jojoba oil can be heated to 370°F (188°C) for 96 hours without exhibiting degradation in general composition and carbon chain length. The stability shown by jojoba oil makes it especially useful for cosmetic applications.” I’d love any info you have. Regards, Virginia
Hi Virginia! Thanks for reading. You are correct – jojoba is unusually stable for a liquid oil. Usually oils that are liquid at room temperature are composed of polyunsaturated fat, which is more susceptible to free radicals than oils that are solid at room temperature and contain saturated fat, which is more stable. Jojoba, however, is so stable that some researchers have added it to other liquid oils to keep them from turning rancid! The current theory is that the reason for jojoba’s stability is the presence of natural antioxidants in the oil, but even when these are diluted jojoba is still very stable. A book that may be of interest to you in your study of jojoba oil is “The chemistry and technology of jojoba oil” by Jaime Wisniak.
Did you find that your Zinc+Hydration+ coconut oil prevented stretch marks?
Hi Jessica,
Just curious if your theories worked and you didn’t get stretch marks during your pregnancy. Very curious to try the items you’ve mentioned.
Yes, it totally did! My first son stayed “high” until the day he was born when he dropped and all that stretching in a 24 hour period created a little bit of fine silvery stretch marks around my belly button but they went away once I lost the baby weight…just in time to get pregnant again. Oh well! Thanks for reading!
Yes they totally worked for my first pregnancy – no stretch marks except for almost invisible little silvery lines around my belly button from the baby dropping so fast. For my second pregnancy I did get a few reddish stretch marks in my “love handle” area but I wasn’t following my own advice – I drank lots of water but wasn’t taking extra zinc other than my prenatal and most importantly wasn’t applying coconut oil regularly. Truthfully, it was REALLY hard to remember because I was chasing my toddler around and he usually was in the bath with me so the time that I normally would apply the coconut oil (after a shower) ended up being eclipsed by trying to get him dry and clothed. Oh well. I also think that because my pregnancies were so close together (not on purpose) it was a lot of stretching, shrinking, and re-stretching in a short amount of time. The upside is that now I can test my theories on existing stretch marks and see if I can get them to fade! They aren’t terrible (luckily my prenatal is high in zinc and I eat a lot of coconut so was getting it internally) but it wouldn’t hurt to try. Thanks for reading! If you decide to try the protocol, let me know how it goes!
Hello
I was wondering if you had an up date
Also what is your take on “body brushing”?
Hi Mackenzie! Body brushing is great for detoxification and for generally improving skin health. I’ve heard from some people that it noticeably reduced cellulite also, which is especially nice when trying to lose the baby weight!
Does coconut oil really works in fading stretch marks?
Yes, regardless of the severity of the stretch marks it does help to improve skin quality which should help to fade stretch marks over time if used consistently.
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