Eye Creams for Pregnancy | Materni*Talk

What woman can go nine months without needing an eye cream? I can’t imagine it. Between not taking off my mascara at night to staying up too late to missing my vitamins to not drinking enough water, my eyes are often prone to puffiness and dark circles.

Even if you’re better about make-up removal, taking all your prenatal vitamins and drinking more water than I am, pregnancy probably is interrupting your sleep. My 5-months-pregnant sister-in-law has been complaining for months that her soon-to-be baby boy is keeping her up at night already. He loves to move around at night as she goes to bed and between kicking her bladder and the general discomfort of trying to sleep with a large, pregnant belly, she’s already feeling fatigued.

If your unborn baby is already keeping you up at night, too, or if allergies are making your eyes puffy, or an illness during pregnancy has delivered dark circles under your eyes, I have some eye creams for pregnancy that you should know about.

First, a quick note about why choosing an eye cream for pregnancy is important:

You do know that you’re to avoid retinoids during pregnancy, right? Retinoids are oral derivatives of Vitamin A–which can cause serious birth defects when ingested in excess during pregnancy.

Most eye creams actually have retinol in them, another derivative of Vitamin A. While applying topical retinol isn’t the same thing as ingesting a retinoid, we’re definitely with the doctors and midwives who encourage avoiding using retinol topically during pregnancy. Why add the stuff into your bloodstream if you can avoid it?

Avoid eye creams in pregnancy that list retinol as an ingredient and other Vitamin A derivatives such as:

• retinoic acid
• retinyl linoleate
• retinyl palmitate
• tretinoin
• differin

Okay, so now that you’ve tossed out your L’Oreal Revitalift, RoC Retinol Corrective Eye Cream, or MAC Fast Response Eye Cream, what are you supposed to do?

Organic Cucumber Cranberry Eye Gel helps reduce puffiness and brighten under your eyes. I’ve used this product religiously for periods of time, then stopped, and as a consequence, been shocked at how bad my eyes look when I’m not using it! It does take consistent, twice-daily use to see continuous good results, but it’s so easy to do. You only use a pin-head-sized amount of this organic gel under each eye and dab it lightly. One tube can easily last your whole 9 months of pregnancy (but if you’re like me, you’ll love it so much you keep using it after baby arrives).

Belli Eye Brightening Cream uses vitamin K to fade dark circles under the eyes. Other natural ingredients include arnica, which cools and soothes on contact, and green tea extract to deliver antioxidant protection to fight signs of aging. Multiple moisturizers help revive and illuminate your delicate under-eye skin to create the brightening effect.

Organic Two-Timer Eye & Lip Cream is a two-in-one cream that you’ll reach for all pregnancy long. Gently dab just a dot of this ultra-rich cream under your eyes and on your lips at night (it’s too oily to use under makeup in the daytime) to deliver moisturizing, anti-puffiness ingredients like natural lavender, blue green algae, calendula, rooibos and pomegranate extracts. Wake up to softer, smoother lips and softer, brighter eyes.

I used the Organic Two-Timer Eye & Lip Cream for two weeks before my wedding to combat the dry, flaking winter lips I had been developing and it worked amazingly well.

Shop for our eye creams for pregnancy in the Eyes, Lips and Nails section of our Maternitique pregnancy Beauty category and protect that little twinkle in your eyes!

Love,

Tara