Congratulations! You’ve got a mini-me on the way, and your appetite is happy about it. Pickles are your new best friend and chocolate is your new worst enemy. Before pregnancy, eating was a breeze. Nothing upset your stomach, and no amount of fries would send you to the bathroom.
Now, your favorite foods are making you sick, and the things that you used to hate (mustard and pickles) are the new stars in your life. But you miss that chocolate, and you especially miss those fries. What gives?
Your friends tell you that it’s just how pregnancy works and your mom said the same thing. The chocolate is making its way to the landfill, and your partner is doing their best to find that specific brand of pickles that you love.
Why do certain foods agree with us during pregnancy and old favorites make us want to hug a toilet?
Food sensitivities change
Did you know that food sensitivities can change during pregnancy? As basic and common sense as this sounds, sometimes we blame our bloating, acne, and wild mood swings on hormones.
Granted, in most cases, hormonal changes are the culprit behind a pregnant person’s bodily changes. Other times, these symptoms can be traced back to one very simple thing: What you eat.
Why do food sensitivities change during pregnancy?
While the hormonal changes may be behind those new whacky cravings, the way that your body responds to those food triggers may be due to food sensitivities. Here is the science behind food sensitivities and pregnancies, simplified.
One thing to remember is that most food intolerances will not harm your baby. A peanut allergy, for example, or a severe lactose allergy can cause a histamine reaction that will impact your pregnancy if you aren’t careful.
Food allergies DO NOT change during pregnancy. So, if you were allergic to tree nuts before pregnancy, keep avoiding that food. Food sensitivities are not IgE immediate allergies, though. And the symptoms can be so mild that you may not even notice that your acne or belly aches are being caused by food sensitivities to an ingredient that you weren’t sensitive to before you got pregnant.
The reason why food sensitivities change during pregnancy is actually caused by your hormones.
The symptoms are annoying but minor
Food sensitivity symptoms:
– Gas and bloating
– Stomach pain
– Upset stomach
– Chronic fatigue
– Nausea
– Acne
– Headaches
– Mood swings
– Etc.
If you were to look at these symptoms without knowing what they fell under, you would likely assume that you are reading the common symptoms of pregnancy. The problem here is that they aren’t severe enough to send you to the hospital, but they are cumbersome.
If that chocolate bar is giving you a stomach ache or making you ultra gassy, you have to figure out what part of that is just pregnancy or if you have an intolerance to the lactose in the milk chocolate.
One way to know is by eating the food trigger and noting how your body reacts to it. If you don’t want to experience another bout of stomach cramps and nausea, there’s an easier option for you to try.
Get a food sensitivity test
When you’re pregnant, your body goes through so many changes that it may be hard to keep up. Instead of adding potential new food sensitivities to the list of things that you have to worry about, get the answers you need with one simple test.
Immuno Labs was designed to make food sensitivity testing easy, so you can get the answers you need without the fuss. Our Bloodprint panels test for both common and uncommon food triggers that most other tests on the market ignore.
We help guide you through an elimination diet that is medically backed. Ask your doctor about an Immuno Labs food sensitivity test today!
