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Appetite Loss During Pregnancy: Causes, Symptoms, and Advice

Many women experience appetite loss during pregnancy.

You may occasionally find food unappealing, or you may feel hungry but can’t bring yourself to eat.

If you’re dealing with these symptoms, you may want to know possible reasons for your appetite loss, tips for treating it, and when to see a health professional.

This article explains all you need to know about appetite loss during pregnancy.

It’s normal for your appetite to fluctuate, especially as your body undergoes numerous changes during pregnancy.

If you lose your appetite, you may experience a general disinterest in all foods or a lack of desire to eat. Keep in mind that appetite loss differs from an aversion to a few specific foods, which is also fairly common during pregnancy.

Several factors may cause appetite loss during pregnancy, such as the following.

Nausea and vomiting

Nausea and vomiting are common during pregnancy, especially during the first trimester — though some women may experience these symptoms throughout their pregnancy (1).

Both mild and extreme cases of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy can significantly affect food intake and appetite.

Research has shown that fluctuations in the hormones leptin and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) during pregnancy may lead to decreased appetite and more nausea and vomiting (2).

A study in 2,270 pregnant women demonstrated that among women with moderate or severe nausea and vomiting, 42% and 70% reported a reduced level of food intake in early pregnancy, respectively (3).

If you’re experiencing appetite loss due to nausea and vomiting, try to avoid fatty or spicy foods, drink fluids separately from your meals, and eat small, more frequent meals.

You may more easily tolerate dry, salty snacks like pretzels and crackers, as well as bland foods like baked chicken breast.

However, you may need to see a health professional if you experience more serious cases of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy.

Mental health conditions

Various mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression, may affect your appetite.

In fact, pregnant women may be more prone to mental health issues due to various physical and biochemical changes. In particular, depression may lead to altered eating habits, including decreased appetite and a reduced intake of nutrient-dense foods (4, 5).

In a study in 94 pregnant women, 51% of those diagnosed with depression had poor dietary intake, which increased to 71% after 6 months (6).

What’s more, depression during pregnancy is linked to a decreased appetite for healthy foods, an increased appetite for unhealthy foods, and lower intakes of important nutrients like folate, fatty acids, iron, and zinc. This may negatively affect fetal and maternal health (7).

Mental health disorders commonly go undiagnosed during pregnancy due to the shame that some pregnant women feel talking about them. If you’re experiencing symptoms of depression or anxiety, it’s important to consult a trusted health professional.

Medications

Certain medications that are safe to use during pregnancy may cause side effects like decreased appetite.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Zoloft and Prozac are sometimes prescribed to pregnant women diagnosed with depression or anxiety (8).

SSRIs can cause decreased appetite. In fact, some pregnant women have reported a complete loss of appetite, early fullness, and weight loss after starting fluoxetine (Prozac) for depression (9, 10).

Olanzapine and buprenorphine are other drugs that may lead to decreased appetite (11, 12).

Disordered eating

Some pregnant women may experience eating disorders, including anorexia and bulimia. Experts estimate that the prevalence of disordered eating in pregnant women is 0.6–27.8% (13).

Disordered eating can lead to changes in appetite, a phobia of weight gain, and decreased food intake (14, 15).

If you’re pregnant and have an eating disorder, ask your healthcare provider for treatment options.

Other potential causes

Pregnant women may also experience appetite loss due to medical conditions like tumors, delayed stomach emptying, heartburn, and Addison’s disease (16, 17, 18, 19).

Furthermore, high levels of stress may affect maternal health and cause a loss of appetite (20).

Additionally, pregnancy-related changes to taste and smell, nutrient deficiencies in vitamin B12 and iron, and general discomfort from carrying a baby may cause appetite loss in some pregnant women (21, 22, 23, 24, 25).

summary

Nausea and vomiting are some of the most common causes of appetite loss during pregnancy, though there are numerous other factors.

If you’re experiencing appetite loss, you may wonder how to get your eating back on track.

Foods to prioritize

There are a few foods you can prioritize even if you feel you can’t eat whole meals. These will help ensure adequate nutrient intake for you and your baby.

Many of the following foods are simple to make, small in portion size, filling, and easy on your stomach.

• Protein-rich snacks: hard-boiled eggs, Greek yogurt, roasted chickpeas, cheese and crackers, and sliced chicken, turkey, or ham served cold
• Bland, fiber-packed veggies: sweet potatoes, green beans, baby carrots (steamed or raw), and raw spinach salad
• Sweet, simple bites: fresh berries, oatmeal, dried fruit, and cold dairy products like plain cottage cheese
• Bland grains/starches: quinoa, brown rice, pasta, macaroni and cheese, and baked or mashed potato
• Soup: chicken noodle soup and chicken rice soup
• Liquids: simple broths and healthy smoothies

Other strategies

If your appetite loss is linked to nausea or vomiting, try eating small, more frequent meals, avoiding spicy and fatty foods, and supplementing with ginger and thiamine. If acupuncture is an option for you, it may also help (26).

Severe nausea and vomiting may require different treatment methods, including medications and intravenous (IV) fluids (27).

If you have nutrient deficiencies linked to appetite loss, you may need high-dose supplements to restore normal levels. Any supplements should be prescribed and monitored by a medical professional (24, 25).

You can also consult your healthcare provider for individualized treatment.

summary

If you’re experiencing appetite loss during pregnancy, you should prioritize bland, filling foods that are rich in nutrients.

If you’re experiencing occasional appetite loss or a loss of appetite for specific foods, there’s usually no need to worry as long as you’re consuming enough nutrients on a daily basis.

For example, if you’re eating nutrient-dense meals consistently and your weight gain is appropriate to promote fetal growth, occasional appetite loss should not be a concern.

Additionally, some pregnant women may lose their appetite for specific foods, including highly fragrant foods and meat. Yet, this is a relatively common occurrence and not typically a cause for concern.

However, if you’re regularly skipping meals or lose your appetite for more than a day, you should contact your healthcare provider for advice.

This is because it’s crucial to get enough nutrients to support your health, as well as the health of your growing baby.

Potential complications related to poor intake during pregnancy

Undernutrition can lead to many pregnancy-related complications, including poor fetal growth, low birth weight, and maternal weight loss. It’s also associated with lower mental function and behavioral problems in children (29, 30, 31).

Both macronutrients and micronutrients are essential to sustain a healthy pregnancy.

Pregnant women with chronically poor appetites run a risk of anemia, fetal growth abnormalities, and preterm birth (32, 33).

summary

Chronic appetite loss during pregnancy can lead to undernutrition, which can cause many adverse health effects in both you and your baby.

As your body adjusts to pregnancy, you may find certain foods unappealing or experience a loss of appetite. Sometimes, you can’t bring yourself to eat even if you’re hungry.

Keep in mind that appetite loss is fairly common and often linked to other symptoms like nausea and vomiting. You may find that your appetite fluctuates, which is perfectly normal.

If you lose your appetite but still feel hungry, you can try eating small servings of bland, simple foods that are filling, rich in nutrients, and easy on your stomach.

If you experience chronic or long-lasting appetite loss, consult a health professional.

The cause of pregnancy whimsical nutrition: it's not because their body lacks something

• Veronica Greenwood
• BBC Future

25 July 2020

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Image copyright Getty Images

What's behind pregnancy's weird eating habits? Most likely, not at all what we are used to thinking about.

We have all heard stories a thousand times about a pregnant woman who, in the middle of the night, wanted a pickled cucumber with ice cream so much that she sent her husband in search of the desired products. Or who passionately wants chocolate - but not any, namely one that cannot be found in stores nearby.

However, why "heard"? Perhaps you yourself experienced an inexplicable desire to eat something special when you were pregnant.

Often they try to explain this by saying that the food whims of pregnant women occur due to the fact that their body (or the body of a developing fetus) suddenly needed certain nutrients, and there is even something attractive, touching in such an explanation.

In the end, bearing a child is a difficult, long, not always pleasant and sometimes mysterious process. And if a burning desire to urgently eat a burger, or even two, has such a good reason - well, so be it.

However, if you look at the scientific studies of this phenomenon, everything turns out to be much more complex and fascinating.

Researchers have found that the food whims of pregnancy (as a concept) did not exist in all cultures.

And in those non-English speaking countries where pregnant women sometimes report their sudden food cravings, they want something completely different than, for example, women in the US and the UK. For example, in Japan, most often they want such a prosaic thing as rice.

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Going further, studies that have tried to find out whether the body gets the special nutrients it needs from the foods that pregnant women most often want to eat have found no evidence of this.

In fact, women who reported cravings for food ended up gaining much more weight than is considered healthy during pregnancy as a result, which could lead to more complications.

This, however, does not mean that women invent all their desires. And the fact that the reasons for their whims are completely different, they are not dictated by biochemical need.

Understanding why people suddenly crave certain foods in the first place can help, says Julia Hormes, a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Albany, who studies food cravings in a variety of ways.

For example, she says that about 50% of women in the US report craving chocolate during the week leading up to their period.

The scientists decided to investigate whether this craving is due to certain nutrients in chocolate that are important for menstruation, or whether it reflects hormonal changes.

Image copyright, Getty Images

Food cravings may be related to the psychology or cultural traditions of a particular society

In one experiment, a psychologist gave women a box and asked them to eat its contents when they suddenly felt like eating something .

Some of the boxes contained milk chocolate, which had all the usual chocolate ingredients and also had a nice melt-in-the-mouth sweetness.

In others, white chocolate that does not contain cocoa solids (which give milk and dark chocolate its dark color) but still has a pleasant texture.

Third, cocoa candies with all the nutrients of cocoa, but without the mouthfeel that chocolate does.

It turned out that white chocolate had the greatest success in satisfying desires, which suggests that whims are not spurred on by any particularly useful cocoa ingredients.

Other studies of "chocolate whims" have not found an association with hormone levels.

In fact, even during menopause, women continued to feel the desire to eat chocolate, Horms emphasizes, they simply began to attribute it to other reasons.

All this brings us to the conclusion that the source of food vagaries is in psychology or in cultural traditions. A craving for a cookie, a chocolate bar, or a bag of chips can start as a simple thought and then grow bigger and bigger, becoming an obsession that is hard to resist.

At the same time, thoughts of something delicious can coexist with feelings of guilt.

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  In particular, if you hold yourself back for a long time and a barrier has already formed in your head (you are not allowed to eat this food!), it will be extremely difficult to resist and not lose control of your desires when you reach for a forbidden treat.

  And then, after eating a piece of cake, instead of feeling satisfied and doing something else, you eat three more pieces.

  Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that women during pregnancy can limit themselves to certain foods - either by following a healthier diet or following the recommendations of a doctor.

  Image copyright, Getty Images

  Image caption,

  Eating a piece of chocolate regularly can keep you from falling into uncontrollable devouring of tiles

  All of these circumstances give rise - at least in some countries of the world - to situations in which food cravings are more frequent and more likely to occur and are harder to control, which can lead to, say, weight gain.

  In addition, during pregnancy, a woman's whims in eating are not customary to condemn.

  "There are certain moments and situations in our culture where women are not judged for eating foods that are normally supposed to be avoided," says Horms. "PMS and pregnancy are considered such situations in society."

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  Understanding what leads to a craving to eat something can prevent the transition from just thinking about cake to eating cake, Hormes emphasizes.

  One way is to use distractions, both visual and, for example, olfactory. The other is, with the help of self-contemplation and awareness achieved in meditation, to recognize the presence of desire and let it go, let it go.

  Professor Hormes also recommends that if you have a craving for chocolate, for example, buy a very high quality bar and eat a couple of pieces every day, thus preventing the food whim from turning into an obsession and subjugating you.

  As for food whims during pregnancy, the cultural factor can play an additional role here: pregnancy for a woman is a very stressful time, and it can be difficult to go through it without someone's help.

  A study of Tanzanian women who reported their cravings for meat, fish, grains, fruits and vegetables to scientists showed that when a woman got what she wanted, she perceived it as a sign of support from her husband and family.

  Indeed, it takes a lot of dedication to bring pickles to your pregnant wife at two in the morning, which proves that a person really cares about his wife.

  While pickles are great on their own, the fact that your loved one brought them to you and thought of you adds value to them.

  --

  Read the original English version of this article at BBC Future .

  Nutrition for a pregnant woman

  So, your plans and decisions to have a baby have come true - you are pregnant! But this news causes you a double feeling: - on the one hand, a feeling of joy, and on the other hand, a feeling of certain fear and even fear of unknown trials for your life and the fate of the unborn baby. What will he be like? - healthy, beautiful, happy?...

  And this largely depends on the woman herself, on what lifestyle she will lead during pregnancy and, most importantly, how she will eat.

  Nutrition of a woman during different periods of pregnancy

  The main thing in the menu of a future mother is variety. She should consume foods from all food groups: meat, fish, vegetables and fruits, dairy products, bread and cereals.

  A woman's nutrition during pregnancy can be roughly divided into three periods (trimesters).

  If before pregnancy a woman ate normally, felt comfortable, did not experience allergies to any products, then it is not worth changing her diet at an early stage of the first trimester of pregnancy.

  During this period, all organs and systems in the child's body are formed, tissues are formed. The body needs complete proteins and vitamins: lean meat (rabbit, chicken, turkey), fish and seafood, dairy products. Be sure to eat rice, fresh or frozen vegetables, seasonal fruits. In the first trimester, many expectant mothers are still working. No matter how difficult it is to control your diet in the workplace, you need to do it - find time for a full breakfast and lunch.

  In the first trimester of pregnancy, there is an active restructuring of the body and adaptation to a new state. During this period, it is recommended to switch to a low-calorie diet, which includes more fruits, juices, decoctions of dried fruits, including rose hips. At the very beginning of pregnancy, especially if toxicosis torments, more frequent, but less plentiful meals are recommended.

  Always keep a hematogen, a bag of nuts or dried fruits in your pocket to have a snack on the street. If your condition does not allow you to eat regular food, you should pay attention to baby food. Baby products literally save expectant mothers suffering from severe toxicosis. These are boxed cereals, children's curds, cookies and fruit purees.

  In the first trimester, special attention must be paid to the quality of products. Gradually abandon sauces, semi-finished products and canned food containing harmful chemical additives. Do not forget that the placenta freely accumulates and passes chemistry. The importance of products containing folic acid is great, without it intensive metabolism is impossible, its deficiency can cause developmental abnormalities. Folic acid is found in greens, nuts, white cabbage and broccoli, beets, legumes, and eggs.

  According to nutritionists, the diet of pregnant women should be 300 kcal/day higher than that of non-pregnant women, but in the first trimester there is no need to increase the energy value of the diet at all; in the second trimester, an additional 340 kcal / day is required; in the third trimester - 452 kcal / day. Pregnant women generally get enough calories, and more than 80% of women achieve and even exceed the required weight gain. These extra calories benefit the fetus. An underweight woman should gain 16–20 kg during her entire pregnancy, an overweight woman about 7 kg, and a normal body weight of 11–12 kg.

  In the second trimester there are active jumps in the height and weight of the baby and the uterus, so the caloric content of the diet needs to be increased. It is desirable to eat more and better. At this time, the need for trace elements increases: iron, magnesium, zinc, selenium, calcium, potassium. The child creates his own "reserve" of trace elements using the mother's resource, which means that the mother should have enough of them for two.

  Very often in pregnant women in the second trimester hemoglobin drops, this is a normal physiological phenomenon, if it is not threatening to health. You can increase hemoglobin by eating red meat, chicken, fish, dried fruits, pomegranates, green vegetables and fresh herbs, buckwheat, citrus fruits (oranges, grapefruits, pomelo, lemons), rosehip and berry infusions.

  In the second trimester, a pregnant woman should limit her intake of smoked and fried foods, as well as salt. In no case should you limit the liquid. Pure water is the best drink for a pregnant woman, and water should be consumed up to 2-2. 5 liters per day. Water is a natural drink for the body, it does not cause complications and has no contraindications. Edema is caused not by water, but by salt, which we not only add in its pure form, but also consume with canned food, mayonnaise, cheese, and sausage. The absence of salt is not harmful, it is naturally found in many products: vegetables, bread, so the diet will not remain completely without it. Excess salt disrupts metabolism.

  During this period, you can increase the calorie content of food. Childbirth must be approached physically strong. It is better to eat meat and fish in the morning, for breakfast and lunch, and for dinner, prepare dairy and vegetable dishes: cheesecakes, stewed vegetables, cottage cheese and vegetable casseroles. It is necessary to minimize the intake of canned food, smoked meats, pickles and marinades, hot spices and fatty foods. Frequent walks in the air, physical activity are recommended.

  In the third trimester, it is necessary to reduce the calorie content of foods at the expense of confectionery and flour products, eat less fatty meat, as well as cheese and sour cream.

  By the end of this period, many experts advise pregnant women to give up meat altogether to increase tissue elasticity and prevent ruptures.

  During the entire period of pregnancy, special attention should be paid to the combination of products. If you combine foods wisely, you can ensure more efficient absorption of food. If the food is digested poorly, then this can lead to rotting and fermentation of products and the formation of substances harmful to the body of the mother and child. In addition, the fermentation process is accompanied by gas formation, which can lead to flatulence (bloating) and discomfort. This is especially harmful in the last stages of pregnancy.

  Try not to take the first, second and third courses at the same time; this overflows the stomach and presses on the fetus, the food is poorly digested and poorly absorbed. Eat little and often. It is not recommended to eat immediately before starting work, a long walk, before charging and immediately after it; it is advisable to rest for 10 minutes before eating.

  Eat only when you are hungry, try not to snack on the go. Follow the diet, eat at about the same time.

  Proper preparation of food will help to maximize the useful substances contained in the products. Do not overcook food, try not to reheat the same dish several times, it is better to set aside only the portion that will be used. Cook in the most gentle way: baking, steaming, stewing. Avoid frying, boiling in large amounts of water, with this method of processing products, many useful substances are lost. If possible, do not cook for several days at once. Do not use aluminum cookware when cooking. Remember that for a pregnant woman, it is not calories that are important, but the quality of food, its naturalness, primarily a “living cell” (whole cereals, raw vegetables and fruits, fresh meat and dairy products).

  What can harm the pregnant woman and the fetus

  Smoking and alcohol - from the first days of pregnancy, stop smoking if you have smoked before, avoid "passive" smoking, and do not drink alcoholic beverages in any doses.

  Lack of vitamins and microelements in the body - their absence or lack can lead to irreparable consequences. So, for example, iodine deficiency can lead to mental retardation of a child, folic acid deficiency - to severe fetal deformities, calcium deficiency - to a violation of the formation of the child's skeleton, iron deficiency - to anemia and a delay in the physical and neuropsychic development of the child. It is necessary to consult a doctor, perhaps he will recommend switching to iodized salt, as well as supplementing your diet with a vitamin-mineral complex and folic acid.

  Excess weight is the risk of having a large child, which means the risk of complications during childbirth and the child's tendency to become obese at an older age.

  The use of food additives (sauces, seasonings such as vegeta, bouillon cubes), exotic fruits, semi-finished products, carbonated drinks - the risk of allergies and anomalies in a child, unfortunately, increases.

  Recommended for pregnant women:

  • Do not eat hot dogs and other snacks containing meat that has not been heated on fire or boiled in boiling water.

    ---

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