Abdominal pain and diarrhoea during pregnancy
Abdominal pain and diarrhoea during pregnancy can be caused by a number of disorders. How the pregnant woman should behave depends on the severity of the complaints, their duration and additional symptoms. If the symptoms are mild and last less than a day, you can wait at home to see how they develop.
The symptoms are then usually harmless and will disappear again even without treatment. During early pregnancy, the change in diet that many pregnant women make is sometimes responsible for such symptoms. In some pregnant women, the gastrointestinal tract needs a few days to get used to a healthier, fibre-rich diet.
If the pregnancy is advanced, the pressure of the baby on the intestine can lead to slight abdominal pain and stool irregularities. If the symptoms are severe, the expectant parents often have concerns about the unborn child. These are partly justified.
Severe diarrhoea lasting several days can quickly lead to a large loss of fluid and thus to “dehydration” and the loss of important salts in the body. Such a situation, if severe, can cause circulatory problems and become dangerous for the child. In this case, therefore, regardless of the cause, a doctor should be consulted as soon as possible. Possible causes for severe abdominal pain and diarrhoea during pregnancy are the same as for non-pregnant women. They range from simple gastrointestinal infections and food intolerances to chronic intestinal diseases and appendicitis.
Treatment
If abdominal pain and nausea are rare and of low intensity without accompanying symptoms that would indicate more serious disease progression, there is little reason for concern. However, a doctor should definitely be consulted if the pain is very severe, the symptoms persist for more than a week or there are worrying accompanying symptoms. It is advisable to first visit your family doctor as soon as possible, who can decide through anamnesis and an examination of the abdomen whether the pain and nausea are due to a serious illness or can be considered harmless.
In order to support the doctor’s anamnesis, a pain diary can be kept in which, among other things, the time of day and the situation in which the pain occurs are recorded. Important here is the temporal connection to meals or to the consumption of certain foods, which can then indicate food intolerance, for example. Accompanying symptoms can also play a major role and should be reported to the doctor.
If the cause is unclear, the family doctor will make a referral to a gastroenterologist, who can carry out further diagnostics such as a gastroscopy (gastroscopy), which can allow a direct assessment of the stomach wall and thus the diagnosis of potential causes of pain. If a specific cause for the pain has been found, it can then be specifically treated. General measures that can be taken to alleviate abdominal pain are physical rest, drinking herbal teas or putting on a hot-water bottle for the pain. In the case of severe nausea and vomiting, medication against vomiting may be necessary.