Heartburn During Pregnancy - Causes, Symptoms, Risk & Treatment

Heartburn, also known as acid reflux, is a common problem women face during pregnancy. It is not dangerous. However, it may induce a feeling of discomfort, often leading to loss of sleep. Also, the main reason behind its occurrence is the change in your body shape and hormones while growing a baby inside.

To learn more about the condition of heartburn during pregnancy, look at the following sections.

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What Is Heartburn During Pregnancy?

When experiencing heartburn or acidity in pregnancy, you feel a burning sensation in your chest. This sensation may also extend up to your throat with a sour or bitter taste in your back throat.

Heartburn happens because of acid reflux. In this condition, the acid in your stomach moves up to your oesophagus due to improper functioning of LES. LES or lower esophageal sphincter allows the food to enter the stomach. However, once it does, it closes to avoid acid moving up to the oesophagus.

What Are the Causes of Heartburn During Pregnancy?

There are a few common causes of heartburn during pregnancy. These include:

Sphincter Relaxing: Pregnancy releases progesterone. It is a hormone that relaxes your oesophagal sphincter, allowing stomach acid to flow back into your food pipe.
Change in Hormone: Changes in your hormonal level often change your tolerance level and how well you digest food. Thus, often slowing your digestion capacity and inducing heartburn and bloating feelings.
Uterus Enlarging: During the third trimester, when your baby has fully grown, it starts putting pressure on your uterus. As a result, your stomach feels crowded and pushes its acid content up into your oesophagus. This is also one of the reasons why you feel the most heartburn during the last few months of pregnancy.

What Are the Symptoms of Heartburn During Pregnancy?

The following are a few of the symptoms of heartburn during pregnancy that you may notice:

Bad breath
Nausea and vomiting
Acidic taste in your mouth
Burning sensation in your throat, chest and back of the mouth
Sleeping issues
Increase in pain when lying down
Discomfort gets worse when having something fried or acidic
Throat pain

What Are the Risk Factors for Heartburn During Pregnancy?

It would help if you avoided certain risk factors for heartburn during pregnancy to stop the condition from worsening. These include:

Eating greasy, spicy or fatty foods
Eating large meals or overeating
Going to bed right after having your meal
Smoking

How to Treat Heartburn During Pregnancy?

There are a few things you can follow to treat heartburn during pregnancy like the ones mentioned below:

Have a Glass Milk: You can soothe yourself by having a glass of milk after every meal or when experiencing heartburn. It has shown great effects in cooling the insides and relieving some symptoms. However, some moms-to-be also suggest mixing a tablespoon of honey in warm milk.
Chew Sugarless Gum: Another effective way of fighting off the burning sensation is to chew on sugarless gum. A study has proven that chewing gum for half an hour produces more saliva, which neutralises acid reflux in your oesophagus.
Snack on Almonds: The tasty nuts are effective in neutralising juices in your stomach, thus relieving the symptoms and preventing heartburn. So, eating a few almonds is an effective treatment option for heartburn in pregnancy.
Take Prescribed Medications: You can even consult a doctor to get prescribed medicines to cure heartburn symptoms. While over-the-top treatments, including Tums and Maalox, serve as temporary relief, talk to your doctor before taking antacids. It helps neutralise the acids in the stomach. However, you may also need alginates to relieve indigestion for a complete treatment.

Does Heartburn Affect the Baby During Pregnancy?

If you are looking for the effects of heartburn during pregnancy, you will be relieved to know that it does not affect the baby in any way. Also, the famous old wives' superstition saying 'acidity during pregnancy means you will have a hairy child' does not have any scientific backing.

What Are Home Care Strategies to Prevent Heartburn in Pregnancy?

Some home care strategies that you can take up to prevent acidity during pregnancy mainly include a change in your lifestyle and diet like:

1. Eating Healthily

When you are pregnant, it is common to get cravings for all kinds of foods. Also, it feels tempting to eat more than you normally do. However, remember this is not good for either you or the baby. Rather, pick up the following healthy eating habits:

Try to have several four to five smaller meals throughout your day than three larger ones.
Wait at least an hour before lying down on your bed after having a meal.
Avoid having greasy, oily, citrus-content foods.
Do not drink while having your meals.

2. Sit Upright When Eating

It would help if you made a habit of sitting up straight when having your meals. It takes some pressure off of your stomach. This, in turn, ensures stomach acid does not flow up to your food pipe when you finally go to bed afterwards.

3. Say No to Alcohol

Drinking is one of the main causes of indigestion. Moreover, when you drink during pregnancy, it leads to long-term harm to your unborn baby. Not to mention, doctors recommend avoiding alcohol completely when you are pregnant.

4. Stop Smoking

Smoking is another common cause of pregnancy. In addition, it can also affect the health of your baby directly. The reason behind this is when you smoke, the chemicals enter your body, causing indigestion problems. It even forms a ring of muscles at the lower end of your gullet. This further relaxes and pushes acid in your stomach to flow back into the food pipe. As a result, your baby experiences issues like:

Born at a lower weight
Premature birth (before 37 weeks of pregnancy)
Cot death or sudden infant death syndrome (SIDs)

This is all the information on heartburn during pregnancy. You need to know about common conditions that a woman suffers during pregnancy, like such, to avoid serious issues.

While heartburn is nothing dangerous still, you must take proper measures to reduce the symptoms. A few of these ways have been mentioned above, along with causes and risks for you to keep a check on.

Frequently Asked Questions

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When is it time to see a doctor for heartburn during pregnancy?

Adopting a few healthy lifestyle changes and following a diet can help relieve heartburn symptoms in pregnancy. However, if not, if you are still experiencing them along with increased symptoms of weight loss, stomach pain and difficulty in eating, contact a doctor immediately.

Is drinking milk good during pHow likely is a woman to experience heartburn during pregnancy?regnancy?

There are 17% to 45% changes in experiencing heartburn in pregnancy, especially when a woman has entered her third trimester. Also, it is more common in a situation when the woman has already been pregnant before. In addition, it can also be common in women who have heartburn before pregnancy.