Belching rotten eggs during pregnancy: how to determine whether it is dangerous or not

Belching during pregnancy is an unpleasant physiological phenomenon that can accompany a woman throughout 40 weeks. The gastrointestinal tract is one of the first to react to a new condition; a lack of enzymes makes it difficult for food to pass through the esophagus and the digestion process. Discomfort in the abdomen brings a lot of negative emotions to the expectant mother.

Supposed causes and symptoms of belching with the smell of hydrogen sulfide

In pregnant women, belching is explained by two main conditions of formation: physiological reasons, or a pathological state of the body.

Physiological factors that provoke the formation of gases

In addition, belching of hydrogen sulfide in the 2nd and 3rd trimester can be caused by rapid bending over to fasten shoes. Turning on your side while lying on the sofa. Sudden getting up after sleep. That is, any awkward movements.

All of the listed factors in the formation of belching rotten eggs during pregnancy are not dangerous for the mother and the formation (development) of the child. However, in order to avoid unpleasant sensations, you should change your behavior tactics: do not give vent to emotions, exclude some foods from the diet, eat in a timely manner, in small portions, chew food thoroughly.

There is nothing you can do about an enlarging uterus, so you need to happily accept such a minor nuisance as belching rotten eggs during pregnancy. It will pass immediately after the arrival of the long-awaited baby.

Pathological causes and symptoms

Causes of belching in pregnant women

The smell of hydrogen sulfide during belching, combined with pain in the abdomen, changes in stool and flatulence, is an indicative symptom indicating the development (exacerbation) of pathologies of the gastrointestinal tract, liver, parasitic infestation, or VSD (vegetative-vascular dystonia).

The fact is that the female body experiences a high load when carrying a child. The immune system devotes all its strength to the formation of a healthy fetus, and the mother is left with very few of the body’s protective bodies.

You can find out the pathological cause of belching rotten eggs in a pregnant woman by the accompanying symptoms:

Belching during pregnancy can signal a disturbance in cardiac activity, so if arrhythmia, difficulty breathing, or pain in the sternum or under the shoulder blade occurs, consult a doctor immediately.

Why does burping occur during pregnancy?

Changes in the body of a pregnant woman, increased production of some hormones and suppression of the action of others, enzyme deficiency provoke the appearance of unusual sensations and unpleasant phenomena. Belching, which can be repeated several times a day and causes inconvenience, is one of them.

The reasons for belching in the first weeks of pregnancy lie in diet, lifestyle, and the characteristics of the gastrointestinal tract. The expectant mother needs to know that previously loved foods can cause intolerance, nausea, and unpredictable body reactions during pregnancy. This is due to the development of a new person, his growing needs, an increase in the amount of necessary “building material” for the formation of the skeleton, organs, and muscles. The digestive system does not always have time to rebuild, and constantly changing hormonal levels interfere.

A large amount of vegetables and fruits in the diet causes not only flatulence and increased peristalsis, but also belching as one of the ways to remove excess gases from the intestines and stomach. Irritation of the walls of the esophagus and gastric mucosa can be caused by unusual exotic cuisine, hot seasonings, and pickled foods. Pressure on the abdominal organs, which increases with the growth of the fetus, also plays a role.

A favorite soda, pickled cucumber or buttered bun eaten in a cafe can play a bad joke and put a pregnant woman in an awkward position. Holding gases in yourself is dangerous, it can lead to very painful spasms, and it is not always possible to quickly find solitude in a deserted place. It is best to carefully think through your diet in advance and not eat anything “dangerous” if you have an important event or a long stay in a public place.

Diagnostics

To identify pathologies of the liver and gastrointestinal tract, the doctor prescribes the following types of studies:

• Blood tests (clinical, biochemical, for detection of occult blood and detection of parasites) and feces.
• X-ray of the gastrointestinal tract and ultrasound.
• Fibrogastroscopy (or endoscopy).
• Irrigoscopy, others.
• Conducts a visual inspection, measures pressure and temperature.
• If VSD is suspected, he prescribes: MRI, CT scan of blood vessels, autonomic functional tests, electrocardiography.
• To determine parasitic infection in the blood, serological testing, hemoscanning, and ELISA are performed.

To get rid of rotten egg belching during pregnancy, it is important to promptly identify the factors that provoke it, so you need to register with a gynecologist as early as possible.

The main causes of belching

There are several reasons that can provoke belching in pregnant women:

• changes at the hormonal level:
• a growing uterus, putting pressure on the stomach and changing its position;
• exacerbation of a previous chronic disease of the digestive system;
• insufficient digestion of food in the stomach, resulting in stretching of the walls of this organ and
• belching as a consequence of this stretching.

Sour belching has some features. It most often appears after non-compliance with the required diet. Namely: eating fried, spicy, fatty foods in large quantities. Sour belching does not have clear characteristics over time. Sometimes it lasts several hours. Sometimes it appears periodically over a long period of time. At best, it lasts a few minutes, and then ends without a trace.

Belching in pregnant women develops in the following cases:

• eating inappropriately heavy foods;
• long periods of lying down;
• sharp turns from side to side;
• sudden bending of the body forward.

All the actions listed above do not just provoke belching. They negatively affect the general condition of the expectant mother. A woman’s well-being worsens if she makes sudden movements or eats improperly. After all, even overly sweet dishes or sour berries can aggravate the situation.

Treatment

After identifying the type of disease (as well as the cause), the doctor will definitely prescribe medications that are, if possible, harmless to pregnant women and the unborn child.

But if the disease is already known, and the factors that provoke belching of rotten eggs in pregnant women are not pathological, then the following measures can be taken.

Emergency home care

First aid for belching

What you can do before your medical examination:

1. When overeating, in order to eliminate congestion in the stomach, you need to take medications that speed up the digestion process: Mezim or Festal - no more than 1 tablet.
2. For gastritis and pancreatic disease, you are allowed to drink 1-2 tbsp. Almagel.
3. Probiotics Linex (2 capsules), Hilak Forte (up to 50 drops), Colibacterin (no more than 2 tbsp) are suitable for the treatment of dysbiosis.
4. If there is stagnation of bile, pregnant women can take Holosas (1 tsp), Allochol (up to 2 tablets) to get rid of belching rotten eggs.
5. If you suspect poisoning from stale food, you need to rinse (urgently) your stomach, drink activated carbon, Smecta, or another sorbent. Call an ambulance.

The doctor will prescribe other medications, since any self-medication causes harm to both the expectant mother and the baby.

Diet as a form of treatment

Often, the appearance of belching during pregnancy with the smell of rotten eggs is not associated with diseases, since women who register early are constantly tested and pathologies are detected, and treatment is carried out in a timely manner.

What can be done if hydrogen sulfide is released from the stomach due to insufficient digestion of food:

• Lunch, dinner, afternoon snack, and breakfast should be done by the hour, preferably at the same time.
• Take your time eating and stop talking so as not to swallow air.
• Do not consume food in large quantities, it is better to eat less, but more often.
• Avoid foods that irritate the gastric mucosa: sour, bitter, spicy, salty, and also overly sweet.
• Do not drink carbonated liquids.
• Stop eating fatty, smoked, overcooked foods. As well as cakes, canned food, sausages, industrial and homemade semi-finished products that are harmful during pregnancy. All of them increase the acidity of gastric juice, which causes stagnation, causing belching of a rotten egg.
• It is not recommended to eat immediately before bed, since the digestion process slows down significantly at night.
• Avoid physical inactivity; constantly spending time in a lying position interferes with the absorption of protein foods, and this is what causes the rotten smell when belching.
• It’s not even worth talking about alcohol and tobacco; everyone knows how toxic they are for mother and baby.

If the cause of belching is excessive nervous excitability, you can drink tea with mint, lemon balm, and motherwort more often (in the absence of allergies).

Symptomatic therapy

In most cases, belching during pregnancy is physiologically explainable and does not require special treatment. To reduce the frequency of erection, women are advised to adjust their eating habits: eat meals in small portions, do not talk while eating, and exclude foods that increase gas formation from the diet. Pregnant women should avoid sudden bending of the body; it is undesirable to take a horizontal position immediately after eating.

If belching bothers a woman very often or is accompanied by abdominal pain, stool problems, or other signs of dyspepsia, this may indicate the development of a disease of the digestive organs. In this situation, it is necessary to visit a gastroenterologist as soon as possible. Until an accurate diagnosis is established, it is allowed to take medications approved during pregnancy - prokinetics, mild sedatives, which help reduce unpleasant symptoms but do not harm the child’s body.

Prevention

All measures to prevent and prevent belching of rotten eggs during pregnancy can be expressed in several points to protect the health of mother and baby:

1. Don't overeat, but also forget about diets.
2. Don’t take too many bites, but long breaks between meals are also harmful.
3. Walk more, but avoid sudden movements.
4. Do gymnastics, but without fanaticism.
5. Treat diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, liver, etc. in a timely manner, but not independently, but under medical supervision.
6. You should not buy expired or foul-smelling products.
7. Clean water is better for drinking, not tea, coffee, or compotes. You should not absorb a lot of liquid while eating, this leads to dilution of gastric secretion and slower digestion of food.
8. If belching a rotten egg during pregnancy is a companion to eating foods high in sulfur, avoid consuming fresh vegetables such as cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peas. And fruits: bananas, watermelons, avocados. As well as sunflower seeds, nuts, and corn.
9. If your stomach does not digest animal proteins sufficiently, limit your diet to milk, eggs, beef, and various poultry.
10. In case of celiac disease (inability to digest grains), to prevent belching, it is enough to exclude baked goods and cereals from the diet.
11. If food stays in the stomach for a very long time, try to diversify your daily menu. Perhaps the insufficient formation of enzymes occurs because food is absorbed without the pleasure of contemplation and pleasant taste sensations.

The processes of intestinal seething are often provoked by sweets in combination with foods rich in plant and animal amino acids; even if you slightly reduce the daily intake of sugar, belching may disappear imperceptibly for the entire duration of pregnancy.

Diarrhea (loose stools) from belching rotten eggs

Digestive processes are links in one big chain. A failure in one of the links immediately causes a chain reaction.

The final stage of digestion occurs in the small intestine. This is the meeting place of absolutely all enzymes produced by the digestive organs (stomach, pancreas, small intestine). It is here that the breakdown of food into individual components and the main absorption of all beneficial substances, as well as poisons and toxins, occur.

Due to the disruption of food digestion and the absorption of nutrients, the intestinal microflora suffers. An imbalance appears between “bad” and “good” bacteria. Excessive bacterial growth in the intestines leads to flatulence, diarrhea and belching of rotten eggs.

Hydrogen sulfide belching is often a so-called “prelude” to diarrhea, which occurs due to poor diet or eating stale foods.

But it can also accompany serious intestinal infectious diseases caused by the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, Giardia, Salmonella, Shigella, Vibrio cholerae, staphylococci, clostridia. These diseases are characterized by bacterial diarrhea and, in some cases, vomiting and high fever.

Forecast

Prognosis for pregnant women

It is necessarily favorable in the following cases:

• If medical monitoring of a woman’s pregnancy began at an early stage.
• It is important to strictly and accurately follow the doctor’s instructions regarding the treatment of pathologies that cause foul-smelling belching.
• If the doctor insists on any special diet, you must follow it unquestioningly.
• Despite all the doctor’s recommendations, the only way to worsen the prognosis is self-medication with medicines from the pharmacy and folk methods.

Compliance with the diet, prescribed treatment, and preventive measures will certainly help to avoid unwanted consequences that are dangerous for the mother and baby.

Acid-dependent diseases during pregnancy

Heartburn during pregnancy is a very common complaint. It is known that up to 80% of pregnant women experience symptoms characteristic of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) (heartburn, dysphagia, belching and others), and the frequency of heartburn in the first trimester is 7.2%, in the second - 18.2%, in the third - 40%.

The main factors responsible for such a high prevalence of GERD during pregnancy include hormonal changes, such as hyperprogesteronemia (increased levels of the hormone progesterone) and hyperestrogenemia (increased levels of estrogen hormones), as well as increased intra-abdominal pressure due to the growth of the uterus and fetus.

The effect of gestational hormones in the first trimester of pregnancy is due to the fact that, without affecting the basal tone of the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), they reduce the increase in pressure of this sphincter in response to various physiological stimuli, including food intake. In the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, progesterone and estrogen reduce the basal tone of the LES to 50% of the initial level, the maximum reduction occurs at the 36th week of gestation. After successful delivery, the tone of the LES in women who did not suffer from GERD before pregnancy, as a rule, returns to normal - in connection with this, this condition is called “pregnant heartburn”.

Heartburn in pregnant women usually does not lead to the development of esophagitis, complications of GERD (strictures, ulcers, bleeding) and does not require serious drug treatment.

If a woman suffered from GERD before pregnancy, during gestation the complaints may worsen and require examination and drug treatment.

The diagnosis of GERD during pregnancy is established primarily on the basis of complaints, medical history and objective examination. X-ray examination in pregnant women - due to a possible damaging effect on the fetus - is not used; pH-metry and manometry can be used, but the need for its use is doubtful.

Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) is the method of choice for diagnosing GERD in pregnant women, but it should be used only for strict indications, such as a history of complications of GERD and the ineffectiveness of drug therapy.

Treatment of GERD in pregnant women should be based on changes in lifestyle and nutrition: avoiding a horizontal body position immediately after meals, sleeping with the head of the bed elevated (15 cm), avoiding physical activity that increases intra-abdominal pressure (including wearing corsets, tight belts, bandages). The last meal should take place no later than 3 hours before bedtime, you need to eat in small portions, and pay special attention to normalizing stool.

First-line drugs for the treatment of GERD in pregnant women include antacids and alginates. If these drugs are ineffective, it is permissible to prescribe prokinetics (metoclopramide), histamine H2 receptor blockers and (if strictly indicated) proton pump inhibitors (PPIs).

H2-histamine blockers are the most commonly prescribed group of drugs for pregnant women. They are classified as risk category B by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (“drugs that have been taken by a limited number of pregnant women without evidence of an effect on the incidence of congenital anomalies or harm to the fetus”). Russian instructions allow only cimetidine and ranitidine with the caveat: use during pregnancy is possible only if the expected effect of therapy exceeds the potential risk to the fetus. Famotidine and nizatidine are contraindicated in the Russian Federation for pregnant women.

Despite the fact that the FDA also classifies most PPIs as risk category B, in Russia there are stricter restrictions on the use of this group of drugs in pregnant women. Thus, lansoprazole is contraindicated in the first trimester; in the second and third trimesters, its use is possible only if the expected benefit of therapy outweighs the potential risk to the fetus. The use of pantoprazole and esomeprazole is possible only under strict indications, when the benefit to the mother outweighs the potential risk to the fetus. Rabeprazole is contraindicated during pregnancy.

Pregnancy has a beneficial effect on the course of peptic ulcer disease: 75–80% of women experience remission of the disease, and it does not have a noticeable effect on its outcome. However, some patients may experience an exacerbation. Most often this is observed in the first trimester of pregnancy (14.8%) and the third trimester (10.2%), as well as 2–4 weeks before the due date or in the early postpartum period. Uncomplicated peptic ulcer disease does not have a negative effect on fetal development.

Treatment of peptic ulcer in pregnant women includes adherence to generally accepted “regime” measures and diet; taking non-absorbable antacids in usual therapeutic doses (1 sachet 3 times a day 1 hour after meals and adsorbents 1 sachet 3 times a day 1 hour after meals). If there is no effect, H2-blockers are prescribed (ranitidine 150/300 mg once at night); if they are insufficiently effective, as well as if complications develop, we can take PPIs (omeprazole 20–40 mg, lansoprazole 30–60 mg, pantoprazole 40 mg). mg, in the morning before the first meal). Bismuth preparations are contraindicated for pregnant women. Eradication therapy for H. pylori infection is not carried out in pregnant women.

Complications

As a matter of urgency, abandoning everything else, you should go to the doctor if the following symptoms appear against the background of belching a rotten egg:

1. Spasms of the larynx and esophagus, expressed by pain when swallowing or moving food into the stomach.
2. Constant feeling of metallic, sour, bitter, rotten taste.
3. Blood is released during bowel movements.
4. Swelling of the throat, abdomen, and legs occurs.
5. It becomes difficult to inhale and exhale.
6. An abnormal heart rhythm appears.
7. If the belching is intense to the point of vomiting, it constantly torments, intensifies at night.

Such signs signal the development of complex inflammatory processes in the gastrointestinal tract and liver. Or about acute heart failure.

Complications will not appear if all the efforts of the woman, her family and friends are aimed at improving health, comfortable living conditions, creating a good moral atmosphere and good mood. Take care of your loved ones!

When to be afraid of belching:

♦ Category: Pregnancy.

What can burping indicate?

Every now and then, disturbing symptoms can be either a variant of the norm or a pathology. A woman must tell doctors about belching that is becoming more frequent or constantly present, the frequency of its occurrence and the phenomena accompanying it. Based on the test results, specialists will be able to tell what is happening and how dangerous it is.

Odorless air

The safest type of burping is in clean air, without foreign odors or unpleasant taste. Appears when a large amount of air is swallowed with food or water. Having accumulated in the stomach, the air will exit into the esophagus; contraction of the diaphragm will push it higher and force it to abruptly and quickly exit into the oral cavity. Hiccups that occur later last between 5 and 15 minutes and can be stopped by slowly drinking a glass of water.

Sour belching

Belching with a distinct sour taste signals the release of some gastric juice into the esophagus. This happens in pregnant women who eat irregularly, eat 2-3 servings at one time, and then fast for several hours. To get rid of acid belching, you should switch to small and frequent meals in small portions.

With such belching, heartburn also appears; it can hurt and burn in the sternum area. Pregnant women sometimes mistake such pain for a heart attack, the sensations are so strong that they disappear almost immediately after eating.

With the smell of rotten eggs

Be sure to tell your doctor and undergo the necessary examinations if you belch with rotten eggs. Hydrogen sulfide indicates putrefactive processes:

• there are “deposits” of undigested and rotting food in the stomach or intestines;
• dysbacteriosis has developed;
• the smell is caused by constant constipation;
• an inflammatory process has begun in the stomach;
• one of the chronic diseases has worsened: pancreatitis, gastritis, pyloric stenosis.

Belching rotten eggs can also be a symptom of dangerous diseases such as an ulcer or tumor in the stomach or esophagus. Don’t be ashamed of your condition and hide details from the doctor - the identified disease is easier to treat, it will save the life and health of the mother and baby.

Constant strong belching

A severe belching that haunts a woman in the early and late stages of pregnancy indicates a systematic violation of the diet, lack of physical activity or eating in an uncomfortable position, indicates stress, and gastrointestinal diseases. No assurance that belching is normal for pregnant women should reassure the expectant mother until she undergoes an examination and makes sure that her digestive system is in order and is able to cope with the growing loads.

Over the course of several months, the woman will find it harder and harder to cope with stress, she will need more vitamins and minerals, so she needs to take care of her own comfort, a comfortable place to eat and rest, the opportunity to drink clean water or eat something light as soon as the nausea or burping began. It is better to talk to a gastroenterologist or nutritionist about how to improve your diet to get rid of this symptom.