Symptoms of Pregnancy: Off the Beaten Track

There are some subtle symptoms of pregnancy that never gets talked about, for any number of reasons. They may seem too subjective or vague to be accurately pinpointed, or they may be of a personal nature, such as light spotting and bleeding. We might be all familiar with most of the usual ones, but take less notice of the fundamental causes behind them.

Here They Are

Nausea, for instance, is usually attributed to hormones to the exclusion of everything else. But this diagnosis hardly helps the countless women who are actually suffering from it. In fact, an element of “morning sickness” derives from shifts in the olfactory sensations.

Children often find broccoli disgusting because they have a heightened sense of taste that renders the vegetable very bitter. Similarly, your aversion to your ordinary fare might be a symptom of pregnancy. The oft-cited metallic taste works at odds with your otherwise ravenous appetite, so choose your diet as if you’ve never tasted any of the things on the menu before.

The question of light spotting is naturally quite personal in nature, but sometimes it can be accompanied by yellowish discharges. This symptom of pregnancy has been misinterpreted as a STI (Sexually Transmitted Infection) by many a first-time mother, and while it’s an easy mistake to make, you should inform your doctor before you take any action.

Over-the-counter reproductive/obstetric medication can be very harmful to a pregnant woman and her baby, so if you have any reason to suspect pregnancy, always tell your pharmacist.

Perhaps the most subtle of all symptoms of pregnancy is the sustained rise in basal temperature. Contrary to popular imagination, this has nothing to do with hot-flashes, since the latter refers to dilated blood vessels in your skin rather than an overall “feverish” condition. The rise can only be detected by systematic measurements over a long period of time, and doesn’t show up if the temperature is taken at irregular intervals. So it might be a good idea to take up this habit, just to be on the safer side.