Diarrhea is a well-known symptom which manifests through frequent, highly liquid, and foul smelling bowel movements often accompanied by gases, making it necessary for you to spend lots of time near the toilet throughout the manifestation of this health issue. Basically, when our digestive system is working well, it produces stool which is soft but firm, allowing us to pass it easily.
However, when something is wrong with our digestive system, we can be exposed to uncomfortable symptoms such as unformed or loose stool, foul smelling gases, and diarrhea. All these occurrences take place because our digestive system does not complete the processing of consumed food optimally, which can be the result of a number of underlying causes.
Pregnancy and Diarrhea: What Is the Link?
When a woman is pregnant, she is almost bound to experience unpredictable and unusual changes in the body due to the fact that she undergoes numerous hormonal and bodily changes. Also, this is a time when her digestive system is very sensitive as a result of those same hormonal changes that saddle you with all the other physical discomforts that are so common in pregnancy, like morning sickness and frequent urination. Although it is still not fully clear what exactly causes diarrhea, in most cases, this is on its own not a symptom to worry about too much when it is transitory - meaning your stool returns to normal soon enough.
However, diarrhea appearing in the 2nd trimester can be considered less common since this is the period where the female body is has already got used to the pregnancy, leading to less prominent side effects or unusual symptoms. Nevertheless, this problem is not a serious one unless it is followed by certain symptoms such as fever and body ache. Then, there are high chances that the diarrhea is triggered by consumed food or drinks and that the cause behind it is an infection or food poisoning. If this is the case, you need to seek medical assistance since a neglected infection of this type may affect the fetus as well.
The treatment may start with a slight change in your diet where you will eat healthier and lighter foods, allowing your organism to recuperate and fight the infection off.
- Overall, 527 (14.3%) of women had 1 or more episodes of diarrhea during pregnancy.
- The incidence of diarrhea was 848.7 cases/1000 person-years among pregnant women.
- Women who experienced diarrhea during pregnancy were more likely to have other children under 5 years old living in their household than women who did not experience diarrhea.
- There were no differences in maternal BMI, ethnicity, class, literacy, or smoking status by whether women had diarrhea in pregnancy.
- All but 6 women with diarrhea during pregnancy delivered live infants (521, 98.9%), which was a similar proportion to women without diarrhea, among whom 97.9% had live births.
Reasons Behind Diarrhea During Pregnancy
As it was mentioned above, consuming food that did not agree with you for whatever reason is the most common cause of diarrhea in pregnancy. Eating large quantities of highly processed foods - of the type more typically called junk food - may trigger this condition. Thus, stop consuming unhealthy foods and focus on restoring your health since bloating, vomiting and diarrhea can be dangerous for your baby, especially in the later months of your pregnancy, when it may even trigger labor.
Diarrhea may have been preceded by constipation in your case, where an obstruction was created in the bowels, leading to an excessive accumulation of feces. This can be treated medically. Finally, you should never wait once the diarrhea and/or vomiting have been bothering you for more than a day, since you may need medical attention. Stay hydrated but avoid flavored drinks and seek medical assistance as soon as possible.
Your thoughts on this
Loading...