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Craving Carbs
Pregnant and Craving Carbohydrates?
By Shannon McKelden
"Eating too many carbs during pregnancy will not directly cause any medical side effects," Ward says. "Indirectly, eating too many calories from any food group (whether carbs, protein, etc.) can cause rapid weight gain, which can cause medical side effects such as a large-for-gestational-age baby, which can later cause an increase of body fat during childhood as well as an increase in risk of the mother and child developing diabetes later in their lifespan."
There are other unpleasant side effects to overindulging on carbs. Katz found that her carbohydrate cravings contributed to her gaining excess weight during her pregnancy. "Unfortunately, I got in the habit of medicinal eating in the early months and then kept going throughout the whole pregnancy, even after the queasiness had stopped," she says. "So, of course, I put on weight like crazy. The queasiness stopped between three and four months. But ... the over-eating kept going. I was definitely comfort eating throughout the pregnancy and gained 50 pounds as a result."
Dr. Greene blames this weight gain on excessive insulin resistance. "Insulin's main job is to get glucose (blood sugar) out of our bloodstream and into our cells," he says. "So theoretically every time we eat and our blood sugar starts to rise, our insulin level also rises proportionately so that it can get rid of the sugar in the blood stream, and nudge our blood sugar back to levels tha are normal. But during pregnancy women become resistant to the effects of insulin." The reason for this is to allow glucose to cross the placenta and serve as fuel for the developing baby.
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