Pregnant women are notorious for having odd yearnings for foods like pickles and ice cream. While dill pickles (gherkins) aren’t the healthiest food you might eat during pregnancy, indulging in a pickle or 2 every as soon as in a while isn’t most likely to cause damage. Eating large amounts of pickles (gherkins) during pregnancy, however, may make you more likely to experience swelling or heartburn.
Are Dill Pickles Healthy During Pregnancy?
Calories and Macronutrients
Eating pickles isn’t most likely to cause you to exceed your day-to-day advised calories during pregnancy and gain excessive weight. Dill pickles are low in both calories and fat. A medium pickle has just about 8 calories, in addition to 0.1 gram of fat, 1.7 grams of carbohydrates and 0.4 gram of protein.
Vitamins and Minerals
The primary micronutrient you’ll get from eating pickles is vitamin K, which is handy for blood clot. Each pickle has about 25.4 micrograms of, or 32 percent of the everyday worth for, this necessary vitamin. Dill pickles provide trace quantities of other necessary micronutrients as well, such as calcium, potassium, manganese and vitamin A.
Sodium Considerations
The primary issue caused by eating dill pickles during pregnancy originates from their high salt content. Each pickle has 595 milligrams of salt, which has to do with one-third of your day-to-day salt requirement during pregnancy.
Getting excessive salt can increase your risk for hypertension, and during pregnancy it can make you more likely to experience swelling. Consuming plenty of water can help lessen this result. Another alternative is to eat a low-sodium variation of dill pickles rather, due to the fact that these pickles have just about 12 milligrams of sodium each.
Potential for Heartburn
Pregnant women in some cases have problems with heartburn because pregnancy causes your body to produce more of the hormone progesterone. This hormone relaxes the valve that helps keep stomach acid and partially digested food from supporting into the esophagus. If you suffer from heartburn, you may want to restrict your pickle usage. The vinegar used to make pickles is acidic, and acidic foods often make heartburn most likely.
Food Safety Considerations
While store-bought dill pickles are normally safe during pregnancy, you may wish to stay away from homemade refrigerator pickles during pregnancy. The listeria bacteria can survive the process used to make this type of pickle, inning accordance with the North Dakota State University Extension, and this type of food poisoning is particularly unsafe for pregnant women. It can cause premature delivery, stillbirth, health issue for the baby or miscarriage.
