Study: Pregnancy Can Take a Toll on Your Feet’s Arches
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Hemera Technologies/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Attention moms-to-be: you may want to pay more attention to your feet, a new study suggests.
Writing in the American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, researchers from the University of Iowa report that pregnancy flattens out the arches of the feet, most likely due to the obvious weight increase during pregnancy and an increased looseness in the joints caused by the flood of pregnancy hormones.
Of the 49 pairs of pregnant women’s feet they examined, the researchers found that 60 to 70 percent experienced decreased arch height from early pregnancy to five months after childbirth. That caused corresponding increases in foot length up to four inches, as well as a collapsing of the arches.
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