Whether for liverwurst, clementines, chocolate milk, olives or aged steak – the inexplicable and overwhelming craving for certain foods is a hallmark of pregnancy.
Dr. Joseph Gambone of Durango Reproductive Medicine said his patients have told him about “crazy” cravings, whereby a few weeks into gestation, lifelong sushi haters suddenly need two rolls of tuna maki – or else.
Though violent cravings for strange foods are a pregnancy-symptom experienced worldwide, there’s very little scientific research explaining the biology of how – and why – pregnant women come to crave certain foods.
“No one really knows. There are hormone changes. Progesterone changes the taste buds and actually affects the appetite center – that’s certainly a theory. But no one’s proven that,” Gambone said.
Jen Rylko, manager of Guido’s Favorite Foods, said she wasn’t plagued by exotic-food desires during her pregnancy.
“I just ate a lot of cereal,” she said.
But she said other pregnant friends had been less fortunate. In addition to the clichés – pickles and ice cream – she’s heard of expectant mothers hungering after chalk. (Which, for the record, is not healthy.)
Bring it on
Bring up food cravings at any maternity store, and you’ll hear some stories.
At Sprout, a children’s clothing outlet on College Drive, Valerie Herman recalled pregnant friends who’d felt compelled to guzzle “mayo with pickles, and peanut butter sandwiches – which sounds disgusting.”
Luckily, Herman, who was cuddling her beautiful 14-month-old daughter, said she had been unscathed by such longings during her own pregnancy. “I just tried to eat as healthfully as possible,” she said.
On doctors’ orders, she eschewed raw fish.
But she noted, on reflection, the raw fish taboo was curious: It would appear that millions of Japanese babies emerge perfectly robust from their mothers’ wombs, despite being weaned on neonatal diets in which raw fish features prominently.
Craving jamón in Spain
In an essay published in The New York Times last week, economist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz found cravings and food-related fears dominate Google searches about pregnancy.
For instance, in the U.S., when people Googled, “Can pregnant women ____?” the top five things people asked about were: “eat shrimp,” “drink wine,” “drink coffee,” “take Tylenol” and “eat sushi.”
Pregnant Britons were fixated on different foods, Googling prawns, smoked salmon, cheesecake, mozzarella and mayonnaise.
Across the globe, expecting fathers proved to be much less preoccupied by intense longings for possibly forbidden foods. For instance, in Mexico, the top Google searches involving the phrase “my pregnant wife” inquired about “words of love” and “poetry” for “my pregnant wife.” In America, expecting fathers’ top Google searches were somewhat less romantic; they included the rather exasperated sentiment, “my wife is pregnant now what,” and the more helpful, if still hapless, query, “my wife is pregnant what can I do.”
One useful thing expectant fathers can do is procure whatever food their partners are craving, Gambone said.
So long as an expectant mother isn’t suffering from pica – a desire to consume non-nutritious substances like ice, chalk, lead chips, dirt, clay or sand, a condition most often seen in children and pregnant women – the craving is probably fine.
“In pregnancy, it’s usually for pickles and ice cream. I always tell my patients they can indulge themselves in the things they have a fancy for,” he said.
Just as pregnant Spanish women Googled pâté, jamón and sunbathing, in Durango, mothers reported experiencing intense desires for a wide array of locally available foods during pregnancy, some virtuous, some decidedly extravagant.
Leslie Iacona, who was also shopping for baby clothes at Sprout, said she’d craved baby tomatoes.
Her mother-in-law, Jane, remembered that during one of her pregnancies, she lusted after Carvel hot-butterscotch sundaes with chopped peanuts.
“It was 30 years ago, but I probably put on 35 pounds in two weeks eating all those sundaes,” she said.
Maybe baby
Janet Leigh, of WeeCycle, a consignment store for baby, children’s and maternity clothes on College Drive, said she’d noticed many women undergo long-term epicurean transformations during pregnancy – transformations persisting long after a baby’s birth, meaning they can’t be neatly explained by hormone surges.
“A lot of new moms experience that. All of the sudden, you like spinach, when before, you didn’t,” she said.
She said one of her three daughters used to “love Serious Texas Bar-B-Q. She ate there all the time.” But since giving birth, Serious Texas Bar-B-Q – a very Durango taste – has lost all charm for Leigh’s daughter. “Now, she never eats there. It just doesn’t sound good anymore.”
Leigh was unsurprised to hear there’s almost no solid science surrounding pregnant women’s cravings.
“It’s not life-threatening,” she said. “Cravings are just the kind of crazy things that you expect from a pregnant woman.”
Actually, Stephens-Davidowitz said pregnancy can inspire bizarre, newfound cravings in men, too. He writes that in India, “the top (Google) search, by far, beginning ‘my husband wants’ is ‘my husband wants me to breastfeed him.’ In addition, in India, the most common search including both ‘how to’ and ‘my husband’ is ‘how to breastfeed my husband.’”
In America, he says, men’s yearning to breastfeed isn’t reflected in the top 10 Google searches involving the phrase, “my husband wants.” In fact, in the U.S., “my husband wants to breastfeed” trails the much more popular Google searches of “my husband wants to be a woman” and “my husband wants to share me.”
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
