As your tummy is growing day by day and your skeleton is expanding to embrace the baby, this results in body shaped changes. During the first trimester, these body changes do not have a notable impact on the sleeping qualities of a pregnant woman, yet from later time, it is more difficult for her to have a resting night due to body aches, muscle, knee, backbone and shoulder pains. At this time, a pregnancy pillow becomes an alternative, giving the pregnant woman a sounding sleep.

For a pregnant woman, it is not possible today without a pregnancy pillow, or is it?

That is why we have compiled a list of best pregnancy pillows after spending hours of researching, testing and trying and we have shortlisted so that you can jump and buy one.

The Best Pregnancy Pillows of 2018

Before diving down into detailed reviews, let’s take a quick look at top of the charts and select your best pregnancy pillow of 2018:

Image	Name	Rating
	Leachco Snoogle Total Body Pillow	10/10
	Leachco Back 'N Belly Contoured Body Pillow	9/10
	Snuggle-Pedic Shredded Memory Foam Body Pillow	9/10
	PharMeDoc Total Body Pillow	9/10
	InteVision Foam Pregnancy Wedge Pillow	8/10

Reviews of the Top Rated Pregnancy Pillows

We have made things easy for you by reviewing most famous pregnancy pillows available on Amazon.

Without further ado, let’s get started with our unbiased pregnancy pillow reviews.

1. Leachco Snoogle Total Pregnancy Body Pillow (Most Popular)

Leachco Snoogle Total Body Pillow is the most adorable body pillow for pregnancy, chosen by thousands of pregnant women in the USA.

Over ten years on the market, the Leachco Snoogle Total Body Pillow has long tracking record, proving its cuddling and support abilities to pregnant women. The unique design of the Leachco Snoogle Total Body Pillow will naturally follow the natural contour, giving the perfect resting and sleeping time.

Although this total body pillow is not a pediatric item, many pregnant women said it could reduce their lower back pain. The custom pillow cover allows us to clean and wash easily which makes it one of the best pregnancy body pillow in the market.

Key Features:

There is also another Leachco Snoogle Total Pregnancy Body Pillow version with zippered cover which will definitely be a great option for us to clean the cover easily.

2. Leachco Back ‘N Belly Contoured Body Pillow (Luxurious)

Leachco Back ‘N Belly Contoured Body Pillow is an excellent pregnancy pillow that is among top ten selling products in Bedding category, Amazon marketplace. This pillow can support both the back and the tummy at the same time.

One of the best features of this Leachco Back ‘N Belly Contoured Body Pillow is that we do not have to reposition during the night. When the pregnant woman shifts her body, the hourglass like contour will fit to her body naturally, so both her back and tummy will receive the equal support simultaneously. It also elevates and aligns the hips into a correct position, thus preventing pressure on body joints. The maternity pillow from Leachco can also be used in different positions.

And in different pregnancy periods. Seriously, it can be used even after the woman giving birth, as if it is a nursing pillow.

Key Features

 

The only downside of this pillow is that cover easily comes off and then you have to put it again. Another important thing, because the Leachco Back ‘N Belly Contoured Body Pillow has only one size, if you are taller than 5.6’, the pillow may not fit your body.

3. InteVision Foam Pregnancy Wedge Pillow

The InteVision Foam Wedge Bed Pillow brings a normal wedge bed pillow up to a new comfortable level. Instead of using only foam or polyester, this wedge pillow is made up by a stable base and a layer of memory foam on the top. This special structure gives the wedge pillow the ability to support and to cushion effectively, which is not seen in any other wedge pillow on the market. Therefore, despite the fact that the InteVision Foam Wedge Bed Pillow is a bit more expensive than others, it is the most adorable pregnancy wedge pillow.

Key Features

Some buyers recommend InteVision to have a bigger version (in width) so that they could also use for legs support function too. Good elevation, perfect cushion, long lasting material, this InteVision Foam Wedge Bed Pillow becomes an indispensable item in the bedroom of many families.

4. The Original Shredded Memory Foam Pregnancy Body Pillow

Coop Home Goods has been renowned for their innovative stuffing materials: shredded bamboo fibers (40% from Bamboo and 60% from polyester) which give both the necessary support as well as air ventilation. Traditional stuffing materials often compromise between the support function and the soft feeling that a pillow could delivers, but the shredded bamboo fibers resolve the problem radically. Home Coop Goods is famous for manufacturing the best pregnancy pillows in the industry.

This environmental friendly fibers can provides the plushness, breath-ability and shape-ability of a Down pillow (Down: often made by geese feather and down particles), and at the same time, provide the support of a memory foam pillow.

Key Features:

Different Types of Pregnancy Pillows

There are at least three types of maternity pillows nowadays on the market, which differ from design, shapes, styles, materials and prices. Let’s have a closer look to each type and consider their pros and cons to find the best one for your sleeping style.

1. Wedge

The pregnancy wedge pillow comes in a wedge shape, which is aimed to support your tummy, your head or even your backbone. The wedge pillow is actually the most preferred by pregnant women by its affordable price and flexible features.

This pregnancy wedge pillow can be commonly bought at a very reasonable price. This sought-after wedge pillow is not only used for maternity women, but for other sleepers too. It can be used to prop under the regular pillow by back sleepers, it can also be used to support the upper body when you do some yoga postures and so on.

Especially, the handy feature of a maternity pillow is that you can bring it while travelling without any hassle.

After giving birth, the wedge pillow is even used to support the bassinet to give the new born baby a better sleep posture.

Pregnancy wedge pillows have two common designs: they are round pregnancy wedge pillow and triangular wedge pillow.

Benefits of Pregnancy Wedge Pillows for Pregnant Women

There are several advantages of a wedge pregnancy pillow that makes this type of pillow an appealing item:

On the downside, pregnancy wedge pillows will differ in design, steepness, materials and price. Some women prefer to have a hard, steep wedge pillow while others enjoy a smoother, softer one. Therefore, you need to consider these factors to find the most suitable to your own preferences.

How to Sleep with a Pregnancy Wedge Pillow

Sleeping with a pregnancy wedge pillow is very straight forward. You can prop the wedge in three common positions: under your belly, under your back or under your head.

Because the pregnancy wedge pillow is small, you will need a regular pillow to put over the wedge pillow when propping under your head.

Pros

• The pregnancy wedge pillow does not take up a lot of space in the room.
• While this is an inexpensive maternity pillow, it does give considerate support to pregnant women during the first and second trimester.
• Can be used for many purposes
• Most of pregnancy wedge pillows are machine washable

Cons

• As said, this wedge pillow is beneficial to pregnant women in the first and second trimester because it can only support a small part of the woman body. When women’s tummy grows day by day, they will need a full length pregnancy pillow to reduce the body pain.
• Inconsistency in the size, design and materials

Full Length Pregnancy Pillow

Full length pregnancy pillow, or sometimes named as full length maternity pillow, is the one with long design, running along the body length to provide the entire body support.

The two benefits of full length pregnancy pillows are

• Cuddling effect: you will find this type of pillow as one of the best option if you are in fond of tossing around
• Tidier: the full length pillow can take place of several regular pillows to support the whole body.

However, full length pillow does not provide much support for the back. Also, if you are back sleepers, this pillow becomes a redundant item on the bed.

Types of full length pregnancy pillows

The Straight Version is mostly stuffed by polyester fibers, which is supportive, moldable to not easy to conform to bend when you hold in your body.

The Flexible Version is stuffed by micro beads, Styrofoam balls, polyester balls,…which enable the bending effect: you can bend and conform the pillow in any shape that you find comfortable. However, the flexible full length pregnancy pillow is generally noisy than other type of pillows. They might not suitable for the whole night sleeping.

Actually, full length pregnancy pillow always come in the column-like design. With alterations in the stuffing materials, there are straight full length maternity pillow and flexible full length pregnancy pillow

How to Sleep with Full length Pregnancy Pillows

The full length pregnancy pillow is aimed to support the head, legs and give a cuddling effect to the tummy. Therefore, one of the most common postures is to place your head on one side on the pillow, and use your arm and leg to hold it.

You should make sure that your head get enough support from the pillow. You can put a wedge pillow underneath the head to have extra steepness.

Who needs full length pregnancy pillows

• This full length pillow is effective for those who need a full body support
• The pillow is most suitable for side sleepers

Pros

• The pillow can support the whole body just in a single unit
• The pillow is moldable and can bend into any shape (flexible forms)
• Affordable

Cons

• This type of pillow is not easy to wash, make sure the pillow you chose has a washable cover.
• The flexible version can have a lot of noise due to the styrobeads movements, the pillow (with microbeads) is therefore not recommended for whole night sleeping.

Full Body Pregnancy Pillow (or Total Body Pregnancy Pillow)

Total body pregnancy pillow is an item that is sought after by pregnant women after the second trimester thanks to its ability to cushion and support the whole body. The total maternity pillow often wrap the entire body, 5-7 feet in length and resemble a U letter or a C letter.

Although they are total body pregnancy pillows, they are used differently due to the styled design. Some pregnant women find that the C shaped pillow gives them more comfortable, especially it won’t take up much space on the bed like its counterpart.

How to sleep with a C Shaped Body Pillow

C shaped pregnancy pillow design is aimed to support the head, backbone, tummy and the legs in the ridding position. When the head is placed at the top of the C letter, the bottom of the C letter will be put in between two legs. Plus, the back will be supported comfortably, thus prevent spine over-pressure.

How to Sleep with a U Shaped Body Pillow

This pillow offers total body support, from head to toe. While the head is placed at the center of the U letter, two legs will place in straddled position. Unlike the C shaped pregnancy pillow, the U shaped pregnancy pillow gives support on both front and back side.

Pros

The total pregnancy body pillow is of the most cuddling and supportive one that we could find for a pregnant woman. It could be used solely, without a bunch of separate head pillows, wedge pillows, full length body pillow

Cons

As a matter of fact, the total body pillow is mostly huge in size, they will take a certain space in the room. Cleaning the total body pillow is also difficult and they are sometimes expensive (depending on the stuffing materials)

Here are some pregnancy pillow positioning techniques you might consider:

Best Pregnancy Pillow Buying Guide (2018 Updated)

The are some factors that will affect to how we can sort out the most appropriate pregnancy pillow from others, and pillow type is only one of them. Other things we need to know about include pillow cover (include/ exclude), stuffing materials, noise level, hypoallergenic ability, size and personal preference.

Removable cover

In most situation, we need a pillow with removable cover for easier cleaning. A pregnant woman will have a lot of body sweat, compared to normal person, and the sweat is going to be stick into the mattress and the pillows simultaneously.

However, the fact is that cleaning a pregnancy pillow is a hard task, due to its big size so we can’t barely put into the washing machine. Therefore, a removable cover will allow you to keep the maternity pillow hygienic and clean during the whole pregnant circle. Sometimes, the pillow brands will include a removable cover inside a selling package, but sometimes you also have to buy separately. Therefore, you should check for this to make your cleaning time easier later on.

Stuffing Materials inside the Pillow

There are a lot of stuffing materials being used in the pillow industry. Among the most popular materials, Styrofoam ball, polyester (synthetic fiber), micro-bead, memory foam and natural materials are widely used. The stuffing materials is very important, because it will affect to the pregnancy pillow features, such as soft and firmness, noise and smell level, cuddling ability and price.

Styrofoam ball for pregnancy pillow

Styrofoam ball is perhaps the cheapest way that manufacturers use to produce $15-$20 range pillow. The Styrofoam is made by extruded polystyrene which can give our body support due to its lightweight and air-filled structure. Pillows made with Styrofoam are cheap, easy to adapt to the body shape and very lightweight. However, this material bears a lot of noise when we change the body position. Therefore, pillow with Styrofoam is perhaps only suitable for resting, not for sleeping the whole night.

Polyester fiber pillow (or synthetic material pillows)

Polyester is the second popular material used in stuffing pillows. Polyester is able to support and to mold to our body shape, giving the best support for the pregnant body. Nowadays, manufacturers mix polyester fiber with other materials to offer different firmness level for different personal tastes. As a general rule, the more percentage of polyester in the stuffing content, the firmer the pregnancy pillow will be.

Downside of polyester is that, they can accumulate heats which will be an issue during hot season. Old pillow with polyester can contain dust, mite and bacteria, with will become a critical health issue to people with respiratory problems. Therefore, pillow with polyester should only used within a few years.

Micro-beads Stuffed Pillow

Micro bead is micro-sphere polystyrene (which resemble Styrofoam but finer in structure and size). Each bead is very tiny ( less than 1mm in diameter). The micro bead pillow is supportive, lightweight and less noise than Styrofoam. They are very soft and smooth, suitable for catching a quick nap during the day.

Memory Foam Pillow

Memory foam is actually polyurethane with the adding of special chemicals, giving it the viscosity and density characteristic. The higher density memory foam is often used in mattress and pillow production, because it will soften when react with human body heat, eventually mold our body in a few minutes. When we are no longer on the memory foam pillow or mattress, it will recover back the original shape.

Memory foam are quite popular nowadays in pillow production because of its constant molding ability that can adjust accordingly to our body shape during the sleep. The memory foam reduce pressure points, reduce body pain and alleviate neck pain.

With old memory foam pillows, they can emit a very unpleasant smell coming from the foam chemicals and our sweat. Therefore, a memory foam pillow should be washed regularly; even it is dust-mite resistant.

The memory foam pillow is known that will make our body hot because of its heat retaining feature. This is a big drawback when your room does not have air conditioner.

Natural Materials Stuffing

Sometimes, manufacturers employ natural materials to create a more environmental-friendly, breathable, ventilative pillows. If you are about to care for the environment and to make your pregnancy more “organic”, you can then try these pillows as an alternative for the known one. Bamboo fiber, wool, kapok… are those of natural materials that has been extensively used in the pillow production so far.

The downside of natural materials stuffing is that, they can not retain the shape as long as the synthetic materials. Cleaning them is also harder because some of them is not machine-washable (kapok pillow is an instance).

Smell and Noise of a Pregnancy Pillow

Some pregnancy pillows come with the factory smell which cause irritations to users, especially those made of memory foam due to the pressure air used during packaging. Therefore, it is recommended that you should air the newly bought pillow for a few days to remove the smell.

Pregnancy pillows can create different noise level which is due to different types of stuffing materials. You will find Styrofoam based pillows are those of noisy item, for example. Make sure you check for the materials when choosing a maternity pillow to avoid the noise issue.

Healthy Materials: Hypoallergenic Pillow

You might not realize that when pregnancy, your body will alter and more responsive to the environment. In several cases, you will be over-reacted and more sensitive to things that has no effect on your body before. Therefore, choosing a pillow with hypoallergenic materials will definitely a wise choice, to avoid any possible allergy you may have when touching with new fibers. The hypoallergenic pillow is also a must-have item in case you bear breathing complications, asthma before pregnancy.

Size of the Pregnancy Pillow – A Compromise with Husband Sleeping with You

Some women prefer to take the bulky pillows to have more cushions, yet she forget to notice the bed size and eventually the husbands can’t sleep comfortably. You should consider your available space for a maternity pillow before jumping to pick any.

Conclusion

Pregnancy is a very miraculous process and the pregnant women have their bodies transforming day by day, resulting in a lot of health related issues such as muscle pain, knee pain or back pain. While a normal pillow does give the support to the body, a pregnancy body pillow delivers more by reducing the chance of allergy, giving the necessary support at body joints, tummy, back and legs.

Later when the tummy develops, a lot of women said the normal pillows failed to give a sounding night and with pregnancy pillows, they can have a comfortable night rest. If you could find the normal pillow works for the whole pregnant progress, just stick with it, but if you are in another case, you definitely need to go through some pregnancy pillow reviews and look for a best rated pregnancy pillow for yourself.

Spread the Word