Pregnant and constantly needing to pee

Towards the end of the pregnancy, most pregnant women almost constantly need to pee, both day and night, which can feel very annoying. The need to pee comes from the baby’s head pushing the bladder. At the same time, it might be difficult to empty the bladder because of the increased pressure. How many times you need to empty your bladder depends on how much urine is produced and how much the bladder can hold. How often you need to pee depends on how much the bladder can expand before you need to empty it.

Urine is produced in the kidneys and collected in the bladder, which needs to be emptied once it’s stretched. That’s when you need to pee and normally you can decide for yourself when you want to start peeing. If the bladder is full, it might need to empty itself and you end up wetting yourself. How much urine is made depends on how much you drink and how much the kidneys can concentrate the urine. Just grin and bear it; the extreme need to pee will pass naturally once the baby is born. Until then, you just have to accept that you will visit the toilet a lot.