Hot Water During Pregnancy Is It Safe To Drink?
6 min readWritten by Pradeep
Once you become pregnant, you are extra careful, diligent, and alert about everything you do or eat. You are cautious about your surroundings as well as your health. One thing that you constantly hear is the importance of drinking adequate water during pregnancy. But, hot water during pregnancy is safe to drink?
Some people may also advise you to have warm water while you are pregnant. But you may be concerned about the safety of drinking hot water during pregnancy. Read this article to know more about this.
In This Article
- Is it Safe to Drink Hot Water During Pregnancy?
- Why is Drinking Enough Water a Must in Pregnancy?
- Benefits of Drinking Warm Water During Pregnancy
- Caution While Drinking Water During Pregnancy
- Drinking Warm Water in Pregnancy- Will it Harm My Baby?
- FAQ’s
Is it Safe to Drink Hot Water During Pregnancy?
As long as the water is not scalding hot, it is safe to drink hot water during pregnancy. If you drink very hot water, it can burn the lining in your mouth. Plus, it may increase acidity in your stomach, which can be quite uncomfortable. It is a safe option to drink warm or lukewarm water, which has many benefits.
According to Chinese traditional medicine, the temperature of the water should be in accordance with your body temperature. It is seen that drinking warm water is more beneficial than drinking normal water. Warm water helps you to fight fatigue, builds stamina, and improves your resistance to infections.
Why is Drinking Enough Water a Must in Pregnancy?
Every article you read on pregnancy and every person you talk to about it would advise you to keep yourself hydrated by drinking enough water during your pregnancy.
Why is this? Pregnancy can often result in fatigue, lethargy, and dehydration. This, in turn, can cause dizziness, blood pressure fluctuations, constipation, and cramps.
In fact, in the last trimester, dehydration can even result in preterm labor. So it is absolutely important to remember the following:
- Drink 6 to 10 glasses of water daily for proper hydration and function of bodily processes.
- The water intake is also dependent on the season, area where you live and your activity levels.
- During summers, or if you live in a humid area, increase your intake as you will be losing water through sweat.
- During winters, or if you sit in an air-conditioned room often, you might not feel very thirsty. Despite the season, have water at regular intervals.
- If you are not much of a water drinker, use various mobile apps that can remind you to drink water at regular intervals.
- Water retention is a common problem during pregnancy, and it can be treated by drinking more water.
- If you are doing light workouts, drink more water post-workout. Even during workouts, continuously sip water.
Water carries the nutrients from the food you eat to your fetus and aids in the development of the placenta. So, despite eating nutritious food, if you do not drink enough water, your fetus will not fully benefit from it. So a good hydrated mother will lead to a healthy fetus.
Drinking enough water daily not only avoids dehydration but will also reduce the chances of urinary infection, which is very common during pregnancies. It also improves your energy levels and stamina.
Benefits of Drinking Warm Water During Pregnancy
Drinking lukewarm or hot water during pregnancy (remember, not scalding hot!) will not only help you hydrate yourself, but it also comes with its own set of added advantages:
1. Helps in Detoxification and Digestion
Drinking a glass of hot water during pregnancy to start your day can help you flush out toxins from the system. It clears your digestive tract, making it easier for the nutrients to reach your unborn baby. Plus, drinking warm water melts the oil and fat deposits in the body, whereas cold water hardens them.
2. Helps in Curbing Morning Sickness
Drinking hot water during pregnancy will reduce the occurrence of morning sickness. It will also reduce acidity and heartburn – two common problems women complain of during pregnancy.
3. Averts Constipation
Warm water is known to improve bowel movement, thereby ensuring healthy digestion and avoiding constipation – another common problem during pregnancy. Better digestion and lower levels of toxins can help your body to relax, and you will not feel uncomfortable.
4. Better Bronchial Health
Warm water also ensures good bronchial health as it reduces the chances of throat infection, cold, cough and flu. This is especially beneficial during winter when viral infections are common. During pregnancy, we should try as much as possible to avoid any infections that will need medicine, which in turn might cause problems to the fetus.
5. Better Hydration
Drinking hot water during pregnancy can help you stay hydrated and resume your body’s natural processes with ease – which gets messed up thanks to all the hormonal changes.
Caution While Drinking Water in Pregnancy
The most important thing to remember while drinking water is to ensure it is pure and does not contain any harmful toxins. Tap water in India is considered unfit for direct consumption. Even pipes in many of our buildings result in the accumulation of lead and other minerals in high quantities in water.
And if you live in a city, you might be getting hard water. In fact, even well water (which is a rarity) can contain germs and other toxins. Many a time, these, when passed to the fetus, can cause damage to their vital organs.
Below are 3 tips that can be helpful:
1. Invest in a Good Water Purifier
Try to invest in a good water purifier that cleans water through reverse osmosis and UV technologies. Many people buy water purifiers and forget about it thinking water will always be safe now. If you invest in such a purifier, make sure your service it often and clean it according to the instructions given in the manual.
2. Make it a Habit to Boil the Water Before Consumption
Whether you have a good water purifier or not, make it a habit to boil the water before consumption. Ideally, it would be best if you boil a few liters of hot water during pregnancy in the morning, keep it in a jar and keep drinking from this.
Before drinking, you can also slightly warm it. You can also store it in a flask at the desired temperature.
3. Carry Your Water Wherever You Go
Carry your filtered and boiled water in a bottle wherever you go. This is to make sure that you do not drink unsafe water when you are outside the house. Further, try to use a steel bottle or a good quality plastic bottle.
Drinking Warm Water in Pregnancy- Will it Harm My Baby?
While drinking warm water does not have a direct impact on the baby in the womb, drinking hot or scalding water might cause burns in your mouth and throat. This can cause lots of discomforts. Thus, it directly impacts food intake.
A decrease in food consumption might make you weak. Besides, when the intake of nutrients through the food is reduced, it can adversely affect fetal development.
Water is essential as it carries all the nutrients to the fetus, thereby helping in its proper growth and development. So it becomes necessary to drink an adequate amount of water during pregnancy and keep yourself hydrated in order to keep all the illnesses at bay.
FAQ’s
1. If I Drink Hot Water While Pregnant, Will it Cause my Baby to Lose Hair?
This is a superstitious belief followed by many. The temperature of what you consume cannot affect a baby safe inside the womb. The scalding water can only burn your tongue, not your baby’s head!
2. Can Drinking Hot Water While Pregnant, Help With Morning Sickness?
In some cases it can. Hot water helps with indigestion and constipation. Warm water can also be soothing to a throat that has been strained due to all that retching.
3. Can Drinking Hot Water Cause Preterm Labour?
No it cannot. Only a hot water bath or a sauna can. When you drink anything hot or cold, it cannot impact your pregnancy.
4. Should I Drink Hot Water Only When I am Pregnant?
No, you don’t have to. There is no hard and fast rule that you should drink ONLY hot water. However, hot water has benefits to offer a pregnant woman.
Pradeep,
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