Nasal Strips During Pregnancy
Drug-free, working entirely outside the body, and aimed at a problem most pregnancies produce. Which is why they are so often the first thing suggested.
Pregnancy produces exactly the problem nasal strips are built for, and it removes most of the alternatives.
As always: clear anything, including this, with your midwife or doctor. That is not a formality here.
Why pregnancy blocks your nose
Pregnancy rhinitis is a persistently blocked, stuffy nose with no infection and no allergy behind it. Rising oestrogen increases blood flow to the mucous membranes and causes them to swell, and circulating blood volume rises by something like 40 to 50% over the pregnancy, which means more fluid in the tissues everywhere including the airway.
It affects a substantial minority of pregnancies, often arrives in the second trimester, and typically resolves within weeks of delivery.
Why strips fit this situation
Drug-free. Nothing absorbed, nothing systemic, nothing that crosses anywhere. The whole mechanism is a plastic spring outside your body.
No interactions, and no reason for it to affect anything else.
They target the right mechanism, at least partly. Pregnancy swelling affects the turbinates behind the valve as well as the valve itself, so a strip helps with part of the problem rather than all of it — same limitation as any congestion. Where strips reach.
Most alternatives are restricted. Many oral decongestants are not recommended in pregnancy, and medicated sprays cause rebound congestion, which makes them poor for a months-long problem. That narrowing of options is a large part of why strips get suggested.
The test that tells you whether they will work
Pull the skin of your cheek outward beside one nostril and breathe in. If breathing gets noticeably easier, your narrowing is at the nasal valve and a strip reproduces that. If nothing changes, the swelling is further back and a strip will do little.
What else is reasonable
Saline rinses and sprays. Drug-free, widely used in pregnancy, and aimed directly at the actual mechanism. Often the most effective thing here.
Humidified air, particularly in winter with heating on.
Head of the bed elevated. Helps congestion and reflux, which frequently arrive together in the third trimester.
Side sleeping, which you are likely being advised toward anyway for unrelated circulatory reasons, and which reduces snoring.
Not mouth tape. Nasal congestion is common in pregnancy, and sealing the mouth above an unreliable nose is the one genuinely risky version of that product. Our position is no. Why.
The important part
Snoring that begins during pregnancy is worth mentioning to your midwife.
A prospective cohort study of 1,719 pregnant women found that pregnancy-onset snoring was independently associated with gestational hypertension and with preeclampsia, while snoring that predated the pregnancy was not. That distinction is the whole point — it is new snoring that carries the signal.
Report it the same day rather than at your next appointment if it comes with new or severe headaches, vision changes, swelling in the face or hands, pain below the ribs, or if anyone has seen you stop breathing or gasp awake.
None of that is a reason for alarm. It is a reason to let the people managing your pregnancy know, so they can decide whether it matters. The full picture.