Spicy Food During Pregnancy

Spicy Food During Pregnancy


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Spicy Food in Pregnancy

Not all of us like hot spices, but those who do are quite numerous. Not only men but also women tend to like spicy food. It may also happen so that a person previously indifferent to this kind of food will suddenly acquire a taste to it. Of course, such things happen more often during pregnancy than in everyday life, because tastes of a pregnant woman are a subject to unpredictable changes.

No matter if you have always loved tasty foods or acquired a taste to it during pregnancy, you will face a number of questions: can pregnant women eat spicy foods, is it dangerous, what are the side effects?

Craving For Spicy Foods During Pregnancy

This gastronomic quirk is unlikely to surprise anyone. It is known that pregnant women sometimes eat incompatible products. According to statistics, most often the expectant moms crave for sweet and salty foods, the third place is reserved to spicy foods.

Gynecologists give a simple explanation to it: massive hormonal changes undergoing in the body of a pregnant woman influence even on appetite and taste preferences. However, doctors have more specific arguments.

The craving for spicy foods may be caused by an insufficient production of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Thus, the body feels that it needs stimulation, and requires hot spices to enhance the processes of digestion. Pregnant women often face problems with digestion.

Another opinion is that the craving for spicy foods indicates high cholesterol levels. Perhaps it is a sign that you need to change your eating habits.

However, it isn’t worth finding any faults in your diet. The more that scientists have proven: craving for spicy food is not associated with a deficiency of vitamins and minerals, unlike the craving for sweets.

However, nutritionists recommend pregnant women eat mainly dietary food, abstaining from fast food, fatty, fried, starchy, sweet, smoked, salty and spicy foods. What should you do if you want to have something spicy?

Can Pregnant Women Eat Spicy Foods?

Spicy Food In Pregnancy

No matter if you are expecting or not, spicy foods are contradicted in case of some diseases of the liver and stomach, especially during their flare-ups. In all other cases, no doctor will tell you to foods seasoned with hot pepper or other species. However, at the same time any doctor will tell that you should know when to stop. This is true even for expectant women. There is nothing wrong if from time to time during pregnancy you crave spicy food, you can allow yourself this pleasure.

Moreover, in limited quantities hot spices can be useful to:

  • fight nausea;
  • increase blood circulation (be careful if you have high blood pressure);
  • stimulate the digestive processes;
  • prevents the formation of cholesterol plaques, thrombophlebitis;
  • contribute to the development of the happy hormone serotonin, thus providing you a good mood and casting away the depression.

Scientists proved that capsaicin, the substance contained in chili pepper, is able to prevent the formation of cancer cells! In brief, if you are not experiencing any discomfort after eating spicy food and have no medical contraindications, you can eat spicy food from time to time, but don’t overdo with it. Otherwise, you may face problems and complications.

Why Pregnant Women Can’t Eat Spicy Foods?

For many years, it was believed that spicy foods increase the tone in the uterus, causing contractions. Recently it has been proven that this is wrong.

Meanwhile, food and spices belonging to this category are classified as undesirable during pregnancy. The matter is that spicy and salty foods provoke an excessive thirst, which is fraught with fluid concentration in the tissues forming edema, particularly in late pregnancy. The more you drink, the greater the load on the heart and kidneys, which are now working in an intensive mode. Dehydration, the opposite effect, may occur in individual cases due to diarrhea resulting from excessive spicy foods that is also quite dangerous for expectant mothers.

Some may turn sick after taking spicy dishes, others – have abdominal gases, feeling heaviness in the stomach, sometimes it comes to dizziness and fainting, the blood pressure increases. Along with the possible strengthening of flatulence there is also a very high risk of heartburn, not to mention that mothers-to-be are naturally prone to such disorders. Again, this is the most important issue during the last trimesters.

It should be mentioned that a certain addiction to spicy food in the early stages of being pregnant is likely a temporary phenomenon. Towards the end of pregnancy, when eating spicy food is particularly undesirable, the woman turns more indifferent to spicy stuff: beyond the 24th week the hormonal background gets stabilized, and gastronomic fads tend to vanish. But this does not apply to genuine spicy food lovers. Although it happens that after conception the love to spices disappears for a while.

But if you do not feel any discomfort, your body normally reacts to similar meals, and the only thing that bothers you is how eating spicy foods in pregnancy may harm your baby, the answer is: none. All probable risks are associated solely with feelings and well-being of the pregnant woman. However, experience shows that some babies are too responsive to onion, garlic and other hot spices. Listen to your belly dweller: if he or she dislikes such treats, then, perhaps, it's time to abandon spicy meals.

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