The Effects of Pregnancy on Your Digestive System

Aching boobs, the increased need to pee, the desire to crawl underneath your desk for a nap—you may be overly familiar with the initial signs of pregnancy.

Yet, you might also be familiar with two other, more common (but no less noticeable) symptoms: diarrhea and its antithesis, constipation.

If this sounds familiar, know that you aren’t alone:

• 16-39% of pregnant people experience pregnancy constipation

• Approximately 15% of pregnant people experience diarrhea

Pregnancy poop aside, you might also experience nausea and vomiting (typically during the first 16 weeks of becoming pregnant), as well as heartburn, or gastroesophageal reflux, which affects roughly half of women before they’ve greeted their third trimester.

While we all occasionally experience diarrhea, constipation, nausea, and heartburn, these issues happen during pregnancy for very specific reasons.

Why Constipation Occurs During Pregnancy

You may already know what constipation looks and feels like, from a bloated stomach to a feeling of fullness. Medically speaking, constipation is defined as passing three or fewer stools per week or having difficulty passing a stool. The latter may be subjective but we all know when we’re plugged up. (That’s undigested food hardening in your bowel.)

Constipation during pregnancy may occur as early as the first month or two after conception. That said, it tends to be felt most urgently throughout your third trimester. Here’s why it happens in the first place:

• Fluctuating hormone levels – Conception induces a sharp rise in progesterone, a hormone that plays a pivotal role throughout your life but particularly during pregnancy. It works behind the scenes to thicken your uterine lining to provide a home for a fertilized egg to develop into an embryo and then a fetus. (Think of it as a cozy nest.)

While doing all this busy work, though, progesterone also slows several bodily processes, including intestinal function. Meaning, your bowel doesn’t work as hard at squeezing out waste. On one hand, this is a good thing, as the delay allows you to absorb more nutrients. However, it also causes your stools to absorb more water, ultimately making them difficult to pass.

• Increased iron intake – If you’re doing your due diligence, you’re taking prenatal vitamins to nourish your baby and feed them the folic acid they need for healthy spinal and brain development, as well as the iron supplement that’s required to help give them blood and oxygen. As awesome as this might be, iron is also downright notorious for causing constipation, primarily because the mineral makes it more challenging for bacteria in your bowel to decompose food. This causes waste to accumulate and may lead to constipation.
• Your baby – Witnessing your fetus’s growth is nothing short of amazing. Yet, as your baby grows, it, naturally, causes your uterus to become a tad plumper. This may place additional pressure on your bowel and hinder its ability to send waste on its merry way.

Luckily, there are dozens of ways you can help ward off constipation—a topic we’ll look at after diving into diarrhea.

Why Diarrhea Occurs During Pregnancy

Whether you call it the runs or the trots, Montezuma’s Revenge or the skits, diarrhea happens to the best of us. Defined as the presence of loose, watery stools or the increased need to excuse yourself to the loo, diarrhea can leave you weak and fatigued—the last place you want to be while you’re pregnant.

So, why do some people experience more instances of diarrhea during pregnancy?

• Hormonal changes – Hormonal changes are also to blame for the uptick in diarrhea post-conception. Specifically, diarrhea is triggered by the increased production of prostaglandins. These hormones, which also escalate during menstruation, promote contractions. In doing so, though, they can speed up processes in the digestive tract. Diarrhea is also due to relaxin, a hormone that does wonders in terms of literally stretching your body to accommodate a growing fetus (by loosening your joints, muscles, and ligaments). However, relaxin can also relax the muscles around your rectum and send you running to the bathroom with frequent bowel movements.
• Stomach sensitivity – Pregnancy and cravings go hand-in-hand, and you might find yourself longing for things your digestive tract has never seen before, or at least in the same combinations or volumes. (Pickles in ice cream sounded good in theory, right?) To phrase it differently, you may simply eat too much food or a combination of foods that upset your stomach and trigger your diarrhea.

The good news is that diarrhea tends to go away on its own within a day or two. However, there are also several ways you can stop it before it starts.

How to Combat “Pregnancy Poop”

To reiterate what we’ve covered: Odd changes in your poop are part and parcel of a healthy pregnancy. In fact, some pregnant people report experiencing green poop, which is just food passing through before it’s had time to turn brown (and is again caused by hormones; these ones encourage faster digestion).

Even still, you don’t have to just deal with your pregnancy poop (or lack thereof). Instead, consider:

• Upping your water consumption – Just as your nutritional needs skyrocket during pregnancy, so do your hydration requirements. In fact, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists suggests 8 to 12 glasses of water a day to keep you and your little one hydrated—and to keep your digestive tract moving, but not moving too fast. Water can also help replenish you after a bout of the runs.
• Reaching for more high-fiber foods – High-fiber foods perform double-duty: They offer respite from constipation by adding bulk to your stools while also softening them. And you don’t have to toss wheat germ and All Bran into your Instacart to reap the perks of fiber, either. It’s also present in a boatload of yummy eats, including:

• • Raspberries
  • Quinoa
  • Almonds
  • Apples
  • Rye bread

• Curbing your sugar and dairy consumption – There’s definitely a time and place for giving into pregnancy cravings. But building your plate, so to speak, around a pile of creamy, sweet eats can also exacerbate constipation and diarrhea. Not to mention, it can disturb the delicate flora in your gut microbiota.

As a reminder, it’s also important to refrain from eating unpasteurized dairy, period, no matter how strong your desire for a bite of camembert might be.

Last but certainly not least, shoot to get sufficient exercise, particularly as your pregnancy progresses—inactivity can worsen constipation. Even a leisurely walk or a gentle, prenatal yoga class can spur your bowel into action and help encourage digestion.

Pregnancy and Pooping: When to See a Doctor

Alas, you can’t point a finger at hormones for all of the poop issues you may experience throughout pregnancy. Some instances of constipation, diarrhea, and more may be indicative of a more serious complication, such as:

• Infection
• Food poisoning
• Gallstones
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)
• Celiac disease
• Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth

How can you know if something might be amiss and your digestive issues aren’t just the result of the natural but dramatic changes transpiring inside? By keeping an eagle eye out for the following and calling your healthcare provider immediately if you spot them:

• Blood or pus in your poop
• Weight loss
• Fever
• Dizziness
• Abdominal pain
• Constipation that persists for more than a few weeks
• Diarrhea that occurs alongside vaginal discharge and lower back pain, which may be a sign of preterm labor

All that said, if you do notice a touch of blood on your toilet paper, do your best not to panic, especially if you’re recovering from a recent round of constipation. Chances are, it’s caused by tiny anal fissures which may occur when straining to poop. But if you bleed during bowel movements, reach out to your healthcare professional as soon as possible.

Pregnancy symptoms all look different for everyone, and you may feel like you are alone struggling with them – fear not! Check out our guides on common symptoms like pregnancy brain fog, swollen feet during pregnancy, and pregnancy insomnia.

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