Is Diarrhea Really a Sign of Early Pregnancy?
If you’ve just googled “is diarrhea a sign of early pregnancy” and landed on this article, you’re far from alone. All of us experience some degree of diarrhea in life, unfortunately. It’s also relatively common, among people with uteruses, to wonder whether random health symptoms that pop up from time to time might mean you’re pregnant.
Well, we consulted the poop and pregnancy pros to find out if diarrhea is in fact an early pregnancy symptom. Here’s what they said.
What, exactly, is diarrhea?
Diarrhea is basically poop hell. But more technically speaking, it’s defined as loose, watery bowel movements that occur three or more times in a day, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. It usually lasts just a day or two, which is called acute diarrhea. (Diarrhea that lasts longer than a few days may signal a more serious problem, as can diarrhea lasting a few weeks, called chronic diarrhea.)
Ever wonder what’s actually going on in your body to make your butt expel its contents so violently? There are a few different potential mechanisms, depending on the underlying cause (of which there are many, which we’ll get to). But generally speaking, diarrhea occurs when your digestive system fails to remove enough water from the stool as it moves through, Rudolph Bedford, M.D., a gastroenterologist at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, tells SELF. That commonly happens when stool moves too quickly through the digestive tract, as Merck Manuals explains, or when your stool is diluted by excess water secreted by the intestines.
Here’s how pregnancy affects your poop.
You already know that your hormones fluctuate throughout your menstrual cycle, and you might also know that these hormonal changes can make your poop real weird around the time of your period. That’s largely thanks to a hormone that helps prep your body for pregnancy called progesterone.
Progesterone levels increase after ovulation, anticipating that the egg your ovaries just released will be fertilized, the U.S. National Library of Medicine explains. If you don’t become pregnant, progesterone levels fall back down, and you get your period. If the egg does get fertilized and you do become pregnant, your levels of progesterone will continue to rise, Mary Rosser, M.D., Ph.D., an ob-gyn at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, tells SELF.
How does this early pregnancy progesterone surge affect poop? One of the hormone’s many effects is to relax smooth muscles, like your uterus and intestines. While relaxed intestines might sound like a recipe for the loose, speedy bowel movements that characterize diarrhea, that isn’t what actually happens. In fact, without your GI muscles contracting as hard to move things along, food passage starts to slow down and bowel movements become sluggish, G. Thomas Ruiz, M.D., an ob-gyn at Memorial Care Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, California, tells SELF.
In other words, high levels of progesterone result in constipation, i.e. the exact opposite of diarrhea. That’s why many women experience constipation in early pregnancy. And why “Diarrhea is not a good or reliable sign of early pregnancy,” Dr. Rosser says.
Of course, diarrhea in early pregnancy can happen.
You certainly can get diarrhea in early pregnancy, whether it’s due to something you ate or a stomach bug, Dr. Rosser says. Diarrhea has a ton of potential causes, including bacteria-contaminated food or water, viruses (like the flu or norovirus), parasites, certain medications (like antibiotics), and food intolerances (like lactose intolerance), according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. (And sometimes, the cause is a mystery, but that’s typically NBD if it goes away after a couple days.) All of those things can mess with your GI functioning, whether you’re pregnant or not.
That’s why Dr. Ruiz compares looking at diarrhea as an early sign (or not) of pregnancy to trying to read tea leaves. Basically, you’re going to see what you want to see. At the end of the day, no single symptom is a foolproof sign that you’re pregnant. So even though it’s tempting to interpret every weird body thing as a sign that you’re expecting, a missed period and positive pregnancy test are really the best indicators that you might be pregnant.
Related:
Here’s Why Your Poop Can Be So Freaking Weird on Your Period
What’s the Deal With That Brown Discharge Before and After Your Period?
Originally Appeared on SELF
