The pregnancy cravings

[Celine]

My strongest craving with the my first was banana pudding. Also, smoked salmon with capers, onions, lemon. I also ate significant amounts of tuna, spinach, & liver...I wanted them almost daily.

With my second daugher I felt nauseated most of the 9 months. I don't remember a particular craving, just wanting to eat more frequently to avoid the puke feeling. Anything salty, always.

Celine

[torakris]

My mother during one of her 8 pregnancies had an awful craving for laundry detergent, never acted on it though.

It wasn't me, I was the Pepsi baby, it was the only thing she could drink!

[elyse]

I'm wondering if everyone here changed their diet significantly durring pregnancy, or if it was just amplified. For instance, elfin, did you eat Slim Jims before you were pregnant, or just a bizarre craving?

No pregnancy for me yet. But when my ex-roommate was pregnant, she used to make me go to the store in the middle of the night (no man, just me) and get her 1 box donut holes, 1 box donuts with the thick pink glaze on them, 1 bag baby carrot sticks, and 1 squeeze bottle of Ranch dressing. Repeatedly, for weeks. I got sick just watching her eat it. Shudder. Ranch dressing.

Nero W, this wasn't like a salad, was it? The dirt eating is actually called geophagy. Pica is the general term for eating anything non foodliike. Many people eat dirt, and especially durring pregnancy. In the U.S. eating dirt is most practiced in the South. It's even sold in stores, and there are varieties too.

So, do you think your cravings were new and from left field, or just exaggerated?

[Aurora]

For the first six months of my pregnancy, I literally ate next to nothing. My morning sickness was very intense. I couldn't even stand to watch people eating on television. McDonald's commercials made me kick into high waddle to escape the room. I could not stand the smell of raw onions or coffee. My husband and the Krups were sent to the back porch. He had to brush his teeth, because I could smell coffee on his breath from amazing distances.

After the six-month mark, things changed. My morning sickness went away, and my appetite returned. There's a restaurant in the Old Town neighborhood called Jerusalem. They make these special, crunchy, golden fried onions as an accompanyment to a lentil dish. The lentil dish was good -- but those onions sprinkled over a pita sandwich slathered with hummus -- that was it for me. I would throw the lentils in, too, but I had to have the fried onions.

As it turns out the onions were a dish that the restaurant made specifically for catered orders. I first encountered them at a party that Jerusalem catered several years earlier. My husband talked to the restaurant's manager, and managed to have the onions prepared for me every time we called.

[Maliaty]

Hello

I'm about 6 months along - and the only thing that I have even briefly craved has been smoked almonds. I ate a tonne over a 5 day period - and craving gone! Weird. I don't normally eat smoked almonds...but after that I boosted my other protein intakes (red meat, wholemeal things etc).

Aversions - during those 5 or so weeks of nausea, meat was not a good thing. Stews definitely not. And unfortunately - any form of fat...like duck fat or goose fat. My dearly beloved prepared this cabbage / duck fat thing that we had eaten some time before at a German beer-hall restaurant, and I couldn't be in the same room with it! It was a very bad thing indeed. Thank goodness for ginger!

At the moment, I think I am pretty over yoghurt. The amount of calcium that this baby seems to want is incredible....

Roll on February!

Maliaty

[Marlene]

Congrats on the impending little one! I had a baby that didn't move much and the doctor's advice was to "eat a little something" to "wake it up". 65 pounds later, the boy finally woke up long enough to be delivered

I drank milk by the gallons and I normally hate the stuff

[Maliaty]

Heavens to Betsy! Litres of milk...

Perhaps I should go and have a smoothie or something.

Thanks Marlene!

[Marlene]

Litres.....gallons.....ok, sue me, I never have gotten used to thinking in metric, except for weather temperatures

Smoothies are good. Especially with lots of wonderful fruit in them. Enjoy

[LaurieA-B]

Now that I have a healthy six-week-old baby, I'm willing to admit to my cravings. The main one was cheeseburgers. At least twice a week. And they had to be squishy fast-food burgers, with American cheese (that was key). I usually picked them up at Dick's Drive-In, conveniently located a few blocks from our apartment, where I had never eaten before. The cheeseburger thing was out of left field, as I was a vegetarian for several years and even after I started eating meat again, did not care for ground beef at all. But pregnancy=cheeseburgers. (The funny thing is that during the week of conception, I was on vacation in California. I ate a cheeseburger from In-N-Out, twice. This was the first time I'd eaten a hamburger in at least 12 years; I was curious because everyone says In-N-Out is so good. It was.) I also liked eating meat (much more beef than usual) and American cheese (Kraft singles) in general. Definite protein theme. Dairy was also big; one of my first pregnancy clues was carrying home bags of yogurt, ice cream, milk, and cottage cheese from the grocery store. I ate lots of rice and chocolate pudding. While I sometimes wanted bland foods, I often craved strong flavors like olives and pickles.

If my daughter loves Happy Meals, I have only myself to blame. (The discovery of mad cow disease here in Washington State coincided neatly with the very end of my pregnancy. I remember my last cheeseburger at Dick's because they had a sign posted proclaiming the safety of their burgers.) Okay, must go feed my infant!

[Mayhaw Man]

THis doesn't exactly fall into the craving, but we sure ate a bunch of it.

We had both of our children at home (midwives, no drugs, the whole deal) and Robin was mildly anemic for part of her pregnancy with both boys. We ate tons (lots anyway) of liver and lots of greens of all kinds-turnips, collards, mustard, kale, etc. (along with cornbread most of the time). Beef liver was the preferred by my wife as it has tons of iron and I would rather chicken livers but not nearly as high in iron. We never got tired of the greens, but never have eaten much calves liver since. I think we both got sick of it.

Before you ask-it must have worked. Miles was a whopping 10-2, and Graham was 9-6. Healthy young men. Miles is now 14 and 6'2" and Graham is 11 and well on his way to the same thing.

[FistFullaRoux]

My mom says she craved Rolaids when she was carrying me. I think that may be one step removed from chalk eating.

[helenjp]

Hmmm...definitely spicy, sour foods! I remember that part, because it sparked a week-long office war!

One of my workmates earnestly begged me on behalf of my baby not to eat hot, spicy food, just as I was racing out the office door, dragging the female half of the office shoeless behind me in my haste to get to the curry shop. I laughed...and came back an hour later to find the men fuming in an atmosphere of nicely-matured injured pride.

I admit it, here was this guy full of kindly concern for my obvious lack of maternal instinct, and I laughed at him. Never again!

I think the spiciness was to mask the actual smell of food, sourness too.

Developed a real loathing for the smell of soy sauce, miso, and natto, things I normally ate every day. Had to wonder about that when my diagnosed but until then symptomless allergy to soybeans started to produce rashes after the baby was born...

As for actual craving...don't recall anything until much later, when I used to long for something sweet on my marathon 3 and 4 hour walks. That probably wasn't craving, that was probably exhaustion!

[hjshorter]

My mom says she craved Rolaids when she was carrying me. I think that may be one step removed from chalk eating.

Roux, antacids have lots of calcium. She might have been craving that.

[reverendtmac]

Just got a phone call from a good friend of mine in Minneapolis who's about five months along. "Todd, when are you coming down next?" "Soon as I can, darlin'...why?" "I have *GOT* to go to Famous Dave's..."

If she goes for the usual, that means she needs their spinach dip and a half-rack of ribs...

[Lady T]

I recall a good friend's sister who begged and begged for chili during her first trimester. The friend and I obligingly put together a nice chili, with salad and cornbread to go with it; there was no budging the expectant lady out of the kitchen during the prep, and she sat at the table blissfully breathing beef and cumin fumes as we worked.

When it was done and everything was ready, though, she took one look at the brimming bowl of red, gulped, and ran for the washroom. She explained later that what she'd needed was the aroma -- not the chili itself.

The friend and I looked at each other, waited until sis had gone home with a share of the salad and cornbread, and laughed and laughed for the rest of the afternoon.

First and only time I've ever heard of a lady who craved a food's smell (though I've seen quite a number with aversions to specific food smells) and not the taste, or a nutritional component of the food. Has anybody else ever encountered this?

[tastykimmie]

Pregnancy cravings for me were: Pizza Hut Super Supreme Pan pizza, oranges, and chesapeake bay blue crabs.

[hjshorter]

First and only time I've ever heard of a lady who craved a food's smell (though I've seen quite a number with aversions to specific food smells) and not the taste, or a nutritional component of the food. Has anybody else ever encountered this?

That is odd. It was specifically the smell of food that put me over the edge when pregnant - cheese being the worst offender.

[therdogg]

I craved creamed herring on pumpernikel with my first; red meat with #2.

[kellycolorado]

I craved Thai food- especially a nice spicy red curry. Or a nice Indian dish. those spices just sat so well in my tummy... and red meat, which I had pretty much given up after working summers at McD's in high school over 10 years earlier. I'm still a big beef and lamb fan 1 1/2 years later.

I could eat almost anything but would gag on broccoli and the smell and taste of microwave popcorn was the worst thing ever.

[Maliaty]

Now at about 4 days overdue...I don't think I've had any cravings. How boring am I? unless I can somehow disguise my lust for expensive icecream (which was present prepregnancy) as a pregnancy related craving....My chocolate taste has waned somewhat (probably for the best). The most bizarro craving that I have heard of involved the topping of seafood pizza mixed with vanilla icecream. I cannot begin to deconstruct that one from a nutritional POV.

back to calcium supplements, protein & iron.....

cheers

Maliaty

[FistFullaRoux]

My mom says she craved Rolaids when she was carrying me. I think that may be one step removed from chalk eating.

Roux, antacids have lots of calcium. She might have been craving that.

But in 1968, there wasn't that much calcium in there. I think it was the gritty mint thing that she was after.

Whatever. A Cajun woman could come up with some real doozies of a craving if she put her mind to it. Rolaids are tame....

[Toasted]

Now at about 4 days overdue...I don't think I've had any cravings. How boring am I? unless I can somehow disguise my lust for expensive icecream (which was present prepregnancy) as a pregnancy related craving....My chocolate taste has waned somewhat (probably for the best). The most bizarro craving that I have heard of involved the topping of seafood pizza mixed with vanilla icecream. I cannot begin to deconstruct that one from a nutritional POV.

back to calcium supplements, protein & iron.....

cheers

Maliaty

I've been overdue with all three of my babies for at least ten days and it

really sucks! But I'm sure you'll have your sweetie pie any day

now and fall in love like I did! Best luck for a quick and healthy

delivery. Now make sure someone from the outside brings you some good

food. I have never been as hungry as I have been after giving birth and

the hospital food is so horrible. For my last child I had learned and planned

ahead and had Thai and Indian take-out delivered to my room by friends.

[AzRaeL]

Pregnant Women are CRAZY and DANGEROUS.

Stay away from them.

that's my motto.

Incidently, Singapore's total fertility rate is 1.24 and falling :)

[fifi]

With my first one, I never had morning sickness. My doctor found this odd and asked about my diet. It turns out that we had a lot of pecans in the lab for testing and we were always munching on pecans. He attributed my great good fortune to the fact that I was getting a lot more than normal of vitamin B6. I have no idea if that is bull**** or not. What I did crave was anisette and almond snowballs. (We lived in New Orleans at the time. Snowballs are the same thing as Hawaiian Shave Ice.) Since my daughter was born in June, I was in agony until the snowball stands opened. (They close for the winter.) The other thing was watermelon. We bought some pretty expensive watermelon, shipped in from where I haven't a clue. Then, oddly, later in the pregnancy I could not stand to be around raw meat. For some reason, veal was especially repugnant. Hubby was so proud of himself that someone had these big veal shoulders on sale and he brought this huge thing home to slice up into veal cutlets and stew meat for the freezer. After I barfed, I left the house for a friend's place until he called me with the all-clear. Otherwise, all through that pregnancy I don't remember ever feeling so good or full of energy.

For my second one, I don't remember any particular cravings or aversions. I was too busy with blocked kidneys, pneumonia, infected sinuses, even an ingrown toenail. And this from someone who is never sick. The boy was a whole new ball game.

[chromedome]

With our first, my wife was so sick in the first trimester that she nearly died. Given my genetic heritage, I always thought I'd lose my hair before I got any gray (see username...) but I was wrong. I sprouted a bunch, at age 23.

I don't remember any cravings specifically from the first pregnancy (and I won't wake up the missus to ask her...I'm a little loopy, but I'm not CRAZY). I do remember that during the second pregnancy, she ate a lot of garlic, and our daughter as a toddler showed a bizarre predilection for raw garlic. She also had to have a lot of nuts.

Oh, yes...she had a big thing for really garlicky dill pickles. And although she'd always enjoyed ice cream in a desultory way, she really REALLY had to have it all the time. And then when she'd had the ice cream, she'd have a pickle. Or when she'd had a pickle, she'd almost immediately want ice cream.

She was so mortified when she made the connection. We always thought it was just one of those silly made-up things...

Pregnancy really does change the way your body deals with certain foods. My wife was never a milk drinker until the first pregnancy. And she was indifferent to chocolate until the second; at which point it became almost a physical necessity.