6 Benefits of Collagen for Mums

Did you know that out of all the protein your body naturally produces, collagen makes up one-third of it all? It’s true. And its abundance isn’t the only notable aspect of it, collagen also serves multiple key roles in the body. From its skin-healing properties to its connective functions, collagen is beneficial in more ways than one.

This is especially for new mums, whose bodies undergo major stress during birth and require a boost in their healing. If you’re curious to learn more about collagen’s benefits, here are a few reasons why they’re beneficial for mums everywhere!

1) Heals Your Postpartum Body

After giving birth, your body’s natural stores of collagen rapidly decline. Your uterus, abdominal muscles, and pelvic floor experience a lot of pressure during childbirth, and it’s typical to end up with weakened tissues that your current collagen levels can’t heal all at once.

Taking collagen supplements facilitates this healing process, helping you restore and repair these tissues and body structures for a faster postpartum recovery. This is because collagen is a protein that contains amino acids with regenerative properties, which is extremely useful for skin that has been stretched out for childbirth.

On top of collagen, taking zinc supplements and eating protein-rich foods can accelerate the recovery process even further.

2) Collagen Keeps The Skin Elastic

After pregnancy, the skin surrounding the abdomen typically starts to sag and become loose. During the postpartum period, it’s common for expanded skin to retain its shape for quite some time.

However, without medical intervention, it’s possible for loose skin to never return to its original state. The good news is that adopting some positive lifestyle habits, like taking collagen supplements, can help your skin glow in the summer and wintertime alike. 

That said, there are more ways to stimulate collagen growth—you can read more about it in a writeup from the Victorian Cosmetic Institute.

The reason why collagen helps maintain skin’s suppleness is because of its fibrous structure. Collagen is a firm protein that helps bind skin cells together. Alongside elastin, collagen composes 80% of the skin’s outermost layers and provides needed elasticity for a healthy complexion.

When you’re deficient in collagen, your skin will form wrinkles and fine lines and become noticeably drier. Oxidative stress is also mitigated by regular collagen consumption.

3) Soothes Joint Pain

Cartilage, a connective tissue located in our joints, is naturally rich in collagen. But as you rack up more calendar years, it’s typically the case for collagen production to undergo a gradual decline.

When you lack collagen, your joints can become weak and inflamed, resulting in pain and discomfort. In the worst-case scenario, you can develop degenerative diseases like osteoarthritis. In milder cases, joint pain may pop up from time to time.

Regardless of the severity, collagen can soothe joint pains and help relieve joint discomfort. Taking collagen, in particular, has been proven to be effective as a way to naturally boost the production of collagen within the body.

With more collagen in the joints, the outcome that will naturally follow is reduced joint pain and a healthier set of joints.

4) Helps Prevents Hair Loss

If motherly duties are taking a toll on you, hair loss may be one of the more symptomatic signs of this stress. If you’re looking for ways to minimise this in your physical appearance, collagen can be great to take.

Collagen supports the structural integrity of hair follicles, helping you maintain a lustrous appearance. The science behind it is that collagen helps maintain the skin roots that support these hair follicles.

When that skin is left brittle and not hydrated, it can cause hair to fall and become weak, leading to a thinner mane. Furthermore, grey hair and follicle damage caused by harmful free radicals can be prevented or slowed by regular collagen intake.

5) Helps Heal Wounds

Taking a 2.5-gram to a 15-gram daily dose of collagen daily can be a great way to stimulate the immune system to heal wounds faster, with improvements in wound healing being seen within just a few days.

Collagen provides support in various phases of wound healing, including blood vessel formation, tissue formation, wound closure, and wound debridement. In other words, if you’ve ever wondered why a wound in your body ends up stitched and healed, you’ve got collagen to thank for it!

The rejuvenating ability of collagen is so potent that collagen dressings are even used by doctors to enhance wound repair in health conditions like skin ulcers. As such, if you find yourself with a physical injury, you may benefit greatly from taking collagen to accelerate the recovery of the wound.

6) Supports Gut Health

Collagen doesn’t only support the skin and tissue lining in our bodies. It’s also a pivotal element to our gut health.

C makes for a great healing agent in the digestive system for a couple of reasons. One, collagen contains glycine and glutamine, two essential amino acids that are known for their antioxidant properties and their roles to reduce inflammation in the delicate gut lining.

Secondly, gut health is often indicative of health in other parts of the body, and collagen heals both. If there’s inflammation found in the gut, chances are that there is inflammation elsewhere in the body too.

By taking collagen, you’re reducing the risk of contracting leaky gut symptoms (a condition that causes bad bacteria to enter the gut due to gut lining damage) and other gastrointestinal conditions, while can ultimately boost one’s overall health by preventing any nutrient deficiencies from getting out of hand.