How to Get Rid of Pregnancy Stretch Marks

Based on your answers, your treatment will focus on keeping your skin nourished and healthy in order to prevent the formation of further stretch marks and to help heal existing ones. Keeping your skin well-nourished and elastic is vital to both preventing stretch marks from forming in the first place and eliminating or reducing existing ones.
Your treatment plan also emphasizes the importance of maintaining a healthy and balanced diet and an active lifestyle in order to minimize the appearance of stretch marks due to an increase in weight or waist-size.

1) DIET

The first thing you’ll want to do is make sure you are getting the right diet. Your skin needs the right vitamins and minerals in order to stay resilient and able to withstand stretching. The right nutrients can help keep your skin healthy and can aid in repairing any damage as quickly as possible.

Obviously, the other important reason to maintain a healthy diet is to keep your weight under control as much as possible. Whether you're starting to gain (or have gained) weight or you're pregnant, a nutritious and balanced diet is the first step to getting as lean and stretch mark-free as possible.
Focus on getting enough:

a. Vitamins - especially vitamins A, D & E (See below for foods that contain them)
b. Healthy Fatty Acids - Found in fish, some nuts & flax seeds/oil, among others
c. Zinc is also important for healthy skin - Meat (i.e. beef, chicken, etc.) is the most important source of zinc in most people’s diets. If you are a vegetarian, some beans, nuts and dairy products also contain zinc.


Where to get the right nutrients:

Vitamin A:

-Liver
-Sweet Potatoes
-Carrots
-Mangoes
-Spinach
-Cantaloupe
-Dried Apricots
-Milk
-Egg Yolks
-Mozzarella Cheese

Vitamin D:

-Fortified Dairy Products
(i.e. Milk, Yoghurt, Soy Milk)
-Mushrooms

Bonus: Sun Exposure
(Not too much! A few minutes a day is enough)

Vitamin E:

-Almonds
-Sunflower Seeds
-Avocado
-Peanuts/Peanut Butter
-Spinach

2) PROPER HYDRATION

You’ll also want to make sure you’re getting enough fluids; adequate hydration is crucial in order to keep your skin elastic. If you've ever seen an old dried-out elastic band, you know what I'm talking about; they don't bounce back to their original shape as well and stretching them causes visible damage. Your skin is no different. You don’t necessarily have to drink “8 glasses a day” but try to drink water throughout the day (decaffeinated tea counts too).

Try to avoid alcohol, soft drinks, sugary fruit juices and other drinks that contain lots of sugar and caffeine as they tend to increase weight gain, potentially making your stretch marks worse. Additionally, caffeine and alcohol are diuretics which means they make your body expel fluids (i.e. going pee a lot) which is obviously counterproductive.

3) EXERCISE

Exercise is another important element for three main reasons. The first is that it helps you achieve and maintain a healthy weight which can obviously reduce skin stretching. Reversing all weight gain may not be possible, especially if it's due to pregnancy but staying active can certainly help.

The second reason regular exercise is important is because it increases blood circulation which can help protect and heal your skin by ensuring oxygen and those vitamins, nutrients and fluids we talked about earlier get to where they need to go. This helps heal and protect your skin from stretching and other types of damage.

Finally, exercise causes your body to release compounds into the bloodstream that heal your body from the “damage” caused by exercise. Without going into all the details, all types of exercise wear down your body, so to speak, and afterwards your body goes to work regenerating cells (bones, muscles, etc.), building them back stronger than they were before - that is why your body gets stronger and fitter the more your work it out. The benefit of this is that these compounds, which circulate through your bloodstream, heal cell damage including the damage done to your skin from it being stretched thus helping to minimize stretch marks.

4) THE RIGHT SKIN TREATMENT

In order to give your skin the best possible chances of staying healthy and therefore eliminating any freshly-formed stretch marks, we must give it the vital nutrients and compounds it needs directly. Eating the right vitamins and nutrients is important, but applying them directly to the skin is the best way to make sure they get where they need to be. For this, we recommend applying an effective topical treatment twice daily.

Because your stretch marks have already begun to form fairly recently, your best bet is to provide your skin with the nutrients it needs directly in order to give it the best possible chance of healing - thus reducing the appearance of your stretch marks. TriLastin SR is known to be one of the best products on the market for reducing and eliminating existing stretch marks. It provides a mix of compounds specifically designed to heal existing stretching damage. For best results, apply this topical ointment twice daily to the affected area and wherever else you think they might be forming.

You may like to consult consumer feedback and stretch mark cream reviews in order to determine which product best suits you.

Although they are marketed primarily for prevention of stretch marks, Revitol Stretch Mark Prevention and Dermology Stretch Mark Prevention have been shown to help reduce existing ones, the more recently-formed, the better. This is because they do contain a mix of powerful ingredients designed to help spur collagen and elastin production in the skin in order to allow it to heal effectively.

This is a good way to help prevent stretch marks from forming, as an alternative to dropping a few thousand dollars on surgery or other expensive clinical treatments (which often produce comparable results anyway).

5) NO SMOKING!

Don’t smoke! Smoking narrows the tiny blood vessels in the outermost layers of skin, which decreases blood flow. This depletes the skin of oxygen and nutrients, such as vitamin A, that are important to skin health. Smoking also damages collagen and elastin - fibers that give your skin its strength and elasticity.

6) LIMIT EXCESSIVE SUN EXPOSURE

Because your stretch marks are already starting to form (or have recently formed), it is important to try to keep them from getting worse. For this reason, try to limit your exposure to the sun; the sun can do all kinds of damage to your skin including reducing its elasticity (the reason too much sun exposure can cause/worsen wrinkles). That being said, a bit of regular sun exposure is good (for vitamin D) but it doesn’t take much. If you must be in the sun, avoid the middle of the day, cover your skin (especially where you have stretch marks) and wear sunscreen.

FINAL THOUGHTS

To give yourself the best possible chance of preventing new stretch marks and eliminating existing ones, you'll want to put as many of these methods into practice as reasonably possible. Simply purchasing a good anti-stretch mark cream is a great way to help get your skin supple and stretch mark-free. But why not combine it with a few simple diet and lifestyle changes to really give yourself the best possible chance at achieving and maintaining the smooth stretch mark-free skin you desire?

Follow this comprehensive treatment plan and stick with it. If you do, becoming stretch mark-free is definitely within reach!

Good Luck!