Bulimia and pregnancy is a very bad combination, some women who experience bulimia meanwhile they are pregnant they meet a big risk about they baby’s health. It is obvious, this eating disorder can cause nutrition deficiency since the foods which they eat is purging. The severe of the effect of bulimia in pregnant women will depend on the frequent of the purging itself.
As stated in study result with held by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the combination of bulimia and pregnancy may trigger depression and anxiety in pregnant women comparing to women without this eating disorder. So besides the nutrition sufficiency problem, this also can cause physiological problems.
In the study above, 41,000 pregnant women involve and complete the questionnaire from the Norwegian Mother and Child Study. The result told that 96 of the total samples was experience the bulimia in their first trimester. 26 of them said that they developed bulimia while pregnant meanwhile 67 of them admit that they had been bulimic six months before pregnancy.
The study also reviled that bulimia and pregnancy may cause low self esteem and they have guilty feeling about their condition but at the same time they feel difficult to easing this bad habit. From the questionnaire also know that the women are ten times more prone to this easing disorder compared to men and it often starts to affect young woman for the first time during adolescence.
Bulimia and pregnancy: The possible effects
As stated above, a pregnant woman who experience bulimia during her pregnancy may face some of serious problem that can threat the health of the baby or the mother itself. Below are several problems that may affect the baby and mother:
- The mother may experience high blood pressure
- Stillbirth
- Low birth newborn
- Baby tries to come out with buttocks or feet first
- Premature birth
- Post partum depression
- And miscarriage
If a pregnant woman experience bulimia, talk to the doctor soon to get intense baby and mother monitoring and therapy to make sure the mother and the baby is not face serious problems.