Where’s that itch again?

The skin on my stomach has stretched to what I can only describe as miraculous lengths.

Skin is our largest organ (although I would have to argue my largest organ is my swollen placenta brain as of late). Receptors located throughout our skin make it possible to sense touch, pressure and tension. That is of course, under normal circumstances (i.e. NOT pregnant).

A pregnant woman’s skin however, once stretched to capacity, loses its ability to sense the location of touch accurately (at least that’s what I have presumed as I certainly haven’t heard, read or been able to locate any information about this strange phenomena I’m about to describe).

I’ve noticed when I scratch my belly, the sensation I feel across a large area of skin is the sensation I am typically used to feeling in only a small fraction of my skin. The only reasoning I can fathom behind this odd trickery of sensation is the sensory receptors in my skin have also stretched, and the sensations are therefore felt over a larger distance! (What a strange feeling that is, to feel the degree of stimulation you expect in one inch of skin over several inches).

Hubby and I played a freaky game the other night. Belly exposed in all its glory, we determined a coordinate system (North, South, East and West). With my eyes closed, he proceeded to touch a location on my belly and I had to describe the location of his finger in relative location to my belly button. I was never close. In one instance, I felt his finger 3 inches NNW of my belly button. It was only millimeters west of my belly button. Every new location his finger touched produced the same stunning results. The sensation of touch on my belly is completely messed up! Every time I would learn where he was really touching I would giggle and squirm in my own freakish astonishment.

To validate our highly scientific research, we tried the experiment on his belly. He was able to pinpoint the location of my finger exactly every time. To ensure the test subject (me) wasn’t just experiencing a brain lapse, we tried the same experiment on me again on the inside of my arm near my wrist. I was able to determine the distance of his finger from my wrist to the exact inch every time.

They really should discuss this oddity in pregnancy books. It is one of the most strange and uncanny symptoms of pregnancy I have yet experienced. The migration of the sense receptors on your belly skin! Who’da thunk it?