Is Diarrhea a Sign of Pregnancy?

Pregnancy is a time that every woman looks forward to. This is the time when you're excited about having a child, and if it is your first child, then along with the excitement, comes tons of anxiety. What should I eat? What can I not eat? How do I know if I'm pregnant? What are the early pregnancy symptoms? Is diarrhea one of them? Yes, these and more questions are constantly floating in your mind when you're pregnant or are expecting to be pregnant, and I'm sure you want the answers to all of them. Well, here we will address the question about whether diarrhea is a sign of pregnancy or not.

Diarrhea Before Pregnancy

There is a trend that has been seen where many women that were in their first few weeks of pregnancy were in fact suffering from diarrhea. More often than not, diarrhea and pregnancy are not directly related. So, this diarrhea could be caused due to an infection in the body or due to changes in eating habits. The reason why diarrhea and pregnancy are not directly related is that the action of hormones during pregnancy, is in fact the exact opposite - they work to slow down movement of the bowel. This action is brought about by the hormones so that all the nutrients can be absorbed properly during this time, when there is higher demand for nutrients due to the growing fetus. Thus, ideally speaking, during early pregnancy, women should be complaining of constipation and not diarrhea!

However, on the other hand, there is a compound known as prostaglandin. Just before a woman starts menstruating (which is one of the most fertile periods of the menstruation cycle for a woman), the amount and concentration of prostaglandins present in the body is quite high. One of the effects of prostaglandins on the body is to breakdown the uterine lining and bring about menstruation. So, they also help to relax and soften the lining of the intestinal wall and muscles of the abdomen, which may actually lead to lesser ability of the body to absorb and transport water from the colon and the gut. This may lead to watery stools, which may be interpreted as diarrhea.

Thus, you need to know that it cannot be said for sure that diarrhea is a sign of pregnancy, because scientifically speaking, the pregnancy hormones do not bring about contraction of gut muscles and fast passage of stools, which is actually how diarrhea occurs in humans. However, one needs to understand that there are many different early pregnancy symptoms before missed period that are more commonly seen and which are far more reliable hinters towards pregnancy. These include sore nipples, cramping, fatigue, implantation bleeding, morning sickness, mood swings and food cravings, etc.

In the end, these are all merely early signs of being pregnant and all, some or even none of these signs may be seen in your case, because every woman's pregnancy experience is different and in fact, even one woman may experience different symptoms during different pregnancies. Hence, if you suspect that you are pregnant, or have been looking forward to getting pregnant since a long time and now feel that you've finally managed to get pregnant, then it is best to confirm your suspicions with the help of a pregnancy test or by visiting a gynecologist, rather than by relying on symptoms, which may or may not be conclusive.