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Manicure during pregnancy: all the pros and cons
Manicure during pregnancy is an ambiguous procedure. It is known that varnishes include unsafe chemicals in their composition, but officially obstetricians and gynecologists do not prohibit their use. At the same time, pregnant women want to look attractive, and they cannot do without well-groomed nails.
Pregnancy and manicure: is varnish harmful?
In one form or another, lacquer mixtures contain the substances toluene, camphor, formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate. To remove the varnish from the surface of the nail plate, acetone is often used.
Manicure during pregnancy is not prohibited, but you should not get carried away with nail staining either.
In the course of long-term observations and experiments, it was found that the listed chemical compounds, with long-term exposure, provoke:
- nausea;
- headache;
- preterm delivery;
- cancer.
However, don’t panic right away. Data on the harmful effects of varnish on the body was collected by observing employees of beauty salons – that is, women who deal with dyes for 8 hours a day. An ordinary woman paints her nails no more than once a week, so the likelihood of poisoning with toluene or formaldehyde is negligible.
Manicure during pregnancy: what you should pay attention to
Officially, doctors do not prohibit pregnant women from doing manicure. Even if varnishes contain hazardous substances, they are present there in small quantities. Through the nail plate, chemical compounds cannot seep into the bloodstream and cause significant harm. Nevertheless, pregnant women should take care of the following things before applying varnish:
- perform manicure only in well-ventilated areas so that as little harmful fumes as possible get into your lungs;
- Give up acetone-based nail polish removers;
- do not use cheap varnishes – it is better to purchase one cosmetic product, but of European quality with a proven and safe formula;
- do not paint your nails more than once a week: a neat manicure is, first of all, a carefully processed cuticle and a beautiful shape of the nail plate, so you can completely do without varnish.
It is also worth considering the fact that due to hormonal changes, varnishes sometimes cease to adhere properly to the nails of pregnant women. Therefore, it makes sense to temporarily abandon the use of dyes, limiting ourselves to removing the cuticle, polishing and filing nails.