Just conceived a few weeks back and have been experiencing urges for various foods that you never used to enjoy earlier? Pregnancy brings forth a lot of hormonal changes that make you crave unusual food items like pickles making you reach out automatically for these items. While common pregnancy cravings can be strange, some of the most common cravings are chocolates, lemons, spicy and tangy food, ice, ice-creams, potato chips, sweets, and even pickles during pregnancy.

While some women treat pickles to cure their craving for spicy food, some others find it really helpful to avert morning sickness that usually plagues most women during this period. This makes you automatically worried about whether having these tangy pickles during pregnancy is really safe at this period. Although eating small quantities of pickles may not cause any harm, having it on a daily basis is not advisable.
Pickles During Pregnancy Is It Safe To Consume It?
Nutritional Facts About Pickles
What Are The Benefits Of Eating Pickles During Pregnancy?
Precautions When Eating Pickles During Pregnancy
Risk Factors of Eating Pickles By The Pregnant Women

Pickles During Pregnancy Is It Safe To Consume It?

Pickle during pregnancy is one of the most craved food items for pregnant women at this time. The majority of women want to eat pickles during pregnancy, while some may have cravings these food items in certain months only. If you think you have more craving for these pickles, suddenly, you are most likely not the only one to have it. Consuming a small amount of pickle or pickle juice is alright for pregnant women, as long as you don’t have any reaction to having it.
As long as you are not eating it, eating pickles will not harm you or your unborn baby too. In fact, consuming pickles during pregnancy in a moderate way may actually do you some good at that phase.

Nutritional Facts About Pickles

The nutritional value of pickles is actually non- existent. An ounce of pickle does not contain any cholesterol, fat, or protein in it. It contains just minute traces of carbohydrates and potassium. All that pickle juice does contains is Vitamin C and sodium in moderate amounts only. In short, pickles have limited benefits and are not actually something that can be made part of your daily diet plan during your pregnancy period.

What Are The Benefits Of Eating Pickles During Pregnancy?

A majority of pregnant women crave pickles, and the tangy, spicy taste presents a treat for them. However, pregnancy calls for a focus on your diet plan, and hence eating a nutritionally balanced diet is a must. To satiate your taste buds, limited consumption of pickles is not bad and may even have some of the benefits given below:

1. Aids to maintain the correct balance of electrolytes in your system: The two important electrolytes in your system are sodium and potassium. These are the main minerals that aid in ensuring proper electrical transmissions throughout your system. When one conceives, the body begins to preserving more fluid quantities in it as even your fetus’s nutritional requirements need to be met by your system. This implies your body requires higher amounts of electrolytes and pickle juice that contains moderate quantities of both of them sodium and potassium can help to an extent in meeting these requirements
2. It does not increase your weight: Since pickles, as mentioned before only, have the zero amount of fat and cholesterol in it, you can be certain that eating pickles in moderation way will not make you put on much weight. Unlike other pregnancy cravings like sweets, chocolates, and ice creams, pickles pose very little risk to weight gain during that phase

Precautions When Eating Pickles During Pregnancy

• Chances of dehydration: If you find that you are eating in moderate quantities of pickles during the pregnancy period, it imperative that you remain well hydrated to ensure a proper balance of sodium levels in your system. Too much of pickle consumption can raise levels of sodium and lead to the various health issues especially like dehydration
• Gastric issues: If you have already happened to be a victim of these gastric issues, it is best to steer clear of pickles during pregnancy, this sensitive phase as pickles can cause bloating and other gastric issues during pregnancy for some people. It can also trigger dysentery and other digestive disorders if consumed in excess during pregnancy
• Can cause heartburn: One of the main woes of pregnancy that the majority of the women face is heartburn. Pickles that are highly acidic can only increase the uneasiness if you are one of those women who are already experiencing heartburn during this pregnancy period.
• Can increase sodium levels: Some pickles have extremely high sodium levels that can trigger a negative impact on your fetus’s development and proper growth
• Pickles can hike your blood pressure: Pickles contain a lot of salt that is not good for your body, especially if you are prone to gestational hypertension. Eating too much of pickles can hike up your levels of blood pressure leading unwanted complications during pregnancy
• Limit the quantity: Make sure that your consumption of pickles does not go overboard as eating too much of pickles can cause unwanted adverse effects for you and your fetus growing within you
• Read labels carefully: If you plan on purchasing pickles from the store, ascertain you read labels carefully before buying them. Ensure they are made from organic items and also be sure to check the date of expiry. Steer clear of pickles that have too much of chemical preservatives that may be quite dangerous for the fetus growing inside you
• Steer clear of homemade pickles: Homemade pickles have chances of containing traces of listeria bacteria which can trigger unwanted harm during this period
• Consult your Doctor: It is absolutely necessary to ask your doctor whether having pickles in moderation is safe for your condition during pregnancy as he will be the ideal person to advise you about how safe pickles are during this sensitive phase

Risk Factors of Eating Pickles By The Pregnant Women: 

Nearly most of the pickles contain high salt content in it. So, salt is added to these pickles because it enhances the taste and also functions as an anti-microbial agent to it, aiding in the preservation of pickles by keeping off undesirable bacteria, fungi, and yeast too. But, excess eating of salt through pickles during pregnancy phase can lead to gestational hypertension, which can result in heart attacks and strokes at that period.
Moreover, many Indian pickles contain oil content in excess amount, which can increase cholesterol levels and fat content in the body during the pregnancy period. Consuming very spicy pickles or pickles with chemical preservatives too can even lead to the bloating or gas for pregnant women.

Final Talk:

All this make it clear that eating pickle is not actually a great idea, but having them in fewer quantities once in a while will not do any harm to you or the baby growing within you either. So if you happen to be one of those women, who have a terrible craving for pickles during your pregnancy period, make sure they are safe to eat by consulting your doctor and ensure you eat just moderate quantities and that too, not on a daily basis.