Pregnant - Should You Consume Artificial Sweeteners?
Ingredients that you generally come across in candies, soft drinks, desserts and so on are known as artificial sweeteners. Many women during their pregnancy include these ingredients (in the form of foods and drinks that have been artificially sweetened) in their diet so as to cut down the amount of sugar in their diet.
But before you go about including them in your diet during pregnancy, there are certain things that you need to be aware of. Artificial sweeteners are generally of two types - nutritive sweeteners and nonnutritive sweeteners, the former contains calories while the latter doesn't.
Which sweeteners are safe to have?
Nutritive sweeteners, when consumed in moderation, can be looked upon as safe to have when you're pregnant, as long as they don't add to your body weight. But if you suffer from carbohydrate intolerance like diabetes, insulin resistance or even gestational diabetes, you need to limit the consumption of nutritive sweeteners. This type of sweeteners includes the different forms of sugar sucrose, honey, corn sugar, maltose, fructose and dextrose.
On the other hand, non-nutritive sweeteners are found in small quantities in foods since their role there is to only add a certain sweetening effect to the food product. Experts are still carrying out research on the effects of this type of sweeteners on pregnant women and their babies during pregnancy. The category includes options like sucralose, aspartame, rebaudioside a or stevia and acesulfame potassium.
Which sweeteners are not safe to have during pregnancy?
Apart from certain sweeteners that you can have during this period, there are some that are a total no-go - these are saccharin and cyclamate. While insufficient data is available for the effect of cyclamate on pregnant women, several studies conducted in the past show the adverse effect of saccharin. Certain studies have revealed its effect on the bladder (it can lead to bladder cancer) as well as on fetal tissue and placenta. Contact with this form of sweeteners can cause the unborn or infants to develop muscle dysfunction and irritability. If you wish to discuss about any specific problem, you can consult a Gynaecologist.
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