Heartburn
Indigestion . . . heartburn . . . acid reflux . . . whatever you call it, it’s miserable!
Frisco Midwifery & Birth Center has created this resource to help you understand what’s going on with your pregnancy, and offer you some evidence-based options to help you manage heartburn.
Why do you have heartburn?
No doubt about it — your body is changing so much during pregnancy. In addition to growing a human, your powerful body is making hormones that soften connective tissues in your body so your growing uterus and nudge your other organs aside and grow into that whole space. So lot’s of “relaxin” going on in your tissues. You know what else “relaxes” during pregnancy — the valve at the top of your stomach. It gets a little “sleepy” and works a little more slowly.
Your body makes acid when you are eating . . . acid breaks down food, freeing up nutrition and minerals so they can be absorbed easily by your body and put to good use. But if that acid leaves your stomach, and splashes up into your esophagus, it can really burn. Heartburn is actually stomach acid traveling up your esophagus.
People commonly take over the counter antacids (calcium carbonate) to relieve the discomfort. But, that actually falls into the category of treating the symptoms not the cause. And, it can actually make the heartburn worse and cause some other issues.
The problem with antacids:
(pro-tip, try to avoid them)
Do you remember your old science classes when you learned about “acid” and “alkaline/base”? Acid has a pH of 0-5. Neutral is 6-8. Base/alkaline is 9-14.
Ideally, stomach acid should be VERY acidic . . . in the range of 0-2 on the pH scale . . . so it can do the heavy lifting of breaking down food so you get full use of all your nutrition. Minerals are kind of tough . . so good strong acid is a good thing. But during pregnancy, hormones might make your acid a little less acidic. Even if it still qualifies as “acid” it might be closer to 3-5.. . which may not be quite strong enough to convince the valve at the top of the stomach and triggers it to slam closed during digestion. So, acid can jump out of the stomach and burn your esophagus. Ouch!
Antacids by definition are alkaline. They work by neutralizing the acid in your stomach so when it splashes out of your stomach it won’t burn as much. But it also won’t have the strength to break down food as much. And, it adds unnecessary calcium into your system, which can settle into the placenta and make it “calcified”.
Some solutions and suggestions
Instead of making the acid less acidic / more alkaline, you can supplement with more acid to make the stomach more acidic. The goal is to get so much acid in the stomach that it snaps the valve at the top of the stomach and reminds it to close tightly.
We added some ideas to our “supplements” page in the Resources.
Call your Midwife if:
o You do not experience any relief from the remedies above
o Your headaches get worse or are more persistent
o The headaches are different than normal
o You have blurry vision with your headache
o You have suddenly gained weight
o You have swelling in your hands or face
o You have pain in the upper part of your abdomen on the right
