Are you craving for those delicious jars of pickles or tangy mango pieces more often especially during pregnancy? If you are worried that you are beginning to experience sudden urge of eating pickles, maybe your body is trying to indicate something. So, is it really safe to eat pickles while pregnant? Pickle is known as one of the most craved foods during pregnancy. A lot of pregnant women have the same experience where they are craving to eat pickles throughout their pregnancy, while there are some who might only crave for it certain months. If you happen to have the sudden feeling of excessive craving for pickles then you are certainly not the only one who had this feeling. Let’s find out what’s normal and what’s not on consuming pickles during pregnancy.
Why do pregnant women crave pickles?
Basically, there are three hypotheses about what causes the cravings of pickles during pregnancy:
- The first one that seems to be a most plausible is that this is a hormonal effect that the hormones of pregnancy whether its estrogen or others affect our sense of smell and our sense of taste so that foods taste different to us than they did before. You’re pregnant and so we might crave foods that we didn’t like before or vice versa, have an aversion to a food that we previously liked.
- The second hypothesis is that this is our body trying to nutritionally compensate for deficiencies we might have and that sounds nice in theory but there’s really very little evidence support that we aren’t craving. We should crave healthy foods all the time if that’s what our body was seeking and we don’t do that and there’s nothing really special about pregnancy.
- For that, the final theory is that it may be related to emotional needs that you’re stressed and you need some reassurance or comfort so we go to our comfort foods. Some women report that they went to foods that they loved as teenagers you know and that was what they were craving and maybe some combination of all three of the above.
- But finally there’s this sort of expectation in folklore and watching sitcoms on TV that women will have these cravings and so you may decide that you really do have a craving when you wouldn’t have noticed feeling that craving on a random day when you were pregnant.
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Benefits and Side Effects of Consuming Pickles During Pregnancy
Benefits of eating pickle during pregnancy:
Moderate consumption of pickles does, in fact, benefit you during pregnancy.
- Did you know that when you are pregnant you lose a lot of electrolytes than normal are? So why could that happen? It’s common that all pregnant women understand they are peeing all the time. This is why they are losing electrolytes at a greater rate but the baby is also actually draining them too, thus having the signs of dehydration and electrolyte depletion and imbalance.
- Many pregnancies do not realize that actually water alone is not adequate to hydrate you, so, you need electrolytes to correctly hydrate and carry fluids throughout your body. Potassium and sodium are both key electrolytes to be balanced in your body, so these minerals were able to help supply energy inside your body.
- Especially, when you are a pregnancy your body will begin absorbing and require more amount of fluid from electrolytes at an increased rate. So, here you found the good parts where pickle juice contains some amount of potassium and a good amount of sodium sources.
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What’s normal while eating pickle during pregnancy?
When you enjoy eating small amounts of pickle or pickle juice it is actually alright as long your body does not have any reaction to it.
- In accordance with nutritional value pickles actually have very less since one ounce of pickle contain no value of protein, fats or cholesterol and contain less than one gram of carbohydrates. Since that amount is less than 0.1% of your body’s carbohydrates amount, this is why it’s not an ideal food to eat only on a daily basis while you are pregnant.
- However by consuming the pickle juice which contains high amounts of vitamin C, sodium and some amount of potassium. The key importance is that you are not overeating pickles thus it will not cause harm to you or your unborn baby.
What’s not normal while eating pickle during pregnancy?
By consuming pickles during pregnancy in moderation that can promote your pregnancy growing requirements. However, aware the risk to your unborn baby and yourself from excessive sodium content inside pickles. Though it’s different from jar to jar, which the pickles can contain a very high amount of sodium. This can be the bad side towards the benefits of eating pickles because when consuming at a higher quantity of sodium can, in fact, be very dangerous for both your unborn baby and yourself if you often consumed it over a period of time.
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Side effects of eating pickle during pregnancy:
- When you intake too much sodium that can actually cause you to feel dehydrated.
- If you consume an overdose amount of sodium that also can lead to high blood pressure, which also causes a negative impact on your unborn baby’s growth.
- According to the statements of Renal Physiology’s American Journal of Physiology: that too much sodium content in the body can even affect your unborn baby’s kidney.
- Also, cause increases to risk in your baby’s body of getting high blood pressure in later years.
- This is why especially pregnant women will have of changes happening inside can spikes up your blood pressure level, causing a dangerous disorder known as gestational hypertension. This disorder can cause the condition of seizures, damage to the kidneys and blood vessels. That includes the effects of the swelling condition in the brain, due to a loss of protein, disturbs the supply of oxygen and nutrients to your babies. In the case of gestational hypertension happened, you should implement a low sodium diet that sometimes can help to lessen the conditions. At worst condition baby may need to be delivered instantly.
- At to early stage of delivering the baby, that can be risky for your baby, worrying if the delivery is too premature and that can risk baby’s chances of survival.
- An overdoses intake of sodium can frequently turn a mild case of gestational hypertension into a severe one.
This is why pregnant mom is highly recommended to ensure limit yourself from overeating sodium amount is suggested by your doctor.
NOTE: However, pregnant moms should enjoy having a little pickle which is alright as long as you are not overeating it and also not consuming it too often habitually. You should also consult your doctor about how much and how often you are allowed to have pickles when you really crave for it. But, a usual tip is to suggest that by reducing the sodium and lowered damaging effects by diluting the pickle with water before eating it.
