Curry Leaves During Pregnancy- Are They Safe?

Curry leaves during pregnancy can be a truly wonderful addition to your diet. It not only provides excellent flavor but it also holds an extensive amount of nutrition. Particularly in India, it is one of the most commonly used and popular ingredients in a variety of dishes and regional cuisines for this reason only.

There can be many potential benefits for your health from incorporating curry leaves into your diet, particularly during pregnancy. Being rich in the likes of vitamins, iron, fiber, and more, curry leaves can go a long way towards ensuring good health for both you as well as your baby.

Is It Safe To Eat Curry Leaves During Pregnancy?

Curry leaves boast a rather extensive and diverse nutritional profile, as well as provide no small number of potential health benefits. Therefore, it is not only safe to consume curry leaves during pregnancy, but it is also often recommended by most doctors and dieticians.

Though they are often considered an additive and used simply to enhance the flavor of a particular dish, it is also a perfectly good option to eat curry leaves directly. Eating curry leaves can offer a lot of benefits, from being able to prevent minor infections to helping reduce the risks of anemia and even premature birth.

Related Reading: 21 Pregnancy Superfoods To Include In Your Pregnancy Diet

Nutritional Profile Of Curry Leaves

According to a source, every 100 grams of curry leaves provide around 108 calories of energy.

• They are rich in carbohydrates, proteins, and fiber
• Curry leaves are rich in calcium, zinc, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, and other minerals
• They are low in fat
• It contains carotene, folic acids, and chlorophyll
• It contains essential oils that provide a distinct flavor
• They also contain vitamins like vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin E, etc

5 Benefits Of Curry Leaves During Pregnancy

From the nutritional profile given above, we can see that curry leaves can provide you with quite a bit of nutrition on their own. Hence, it should come as no surprise that they offer quite a few potential benefits to both your health as well as your child’s. A few such benefits of consuming curry leaves during pregnancy are given below:

1. Helps maintain cholesterol levels

Pregnancy can cause a lot of fluctuations in a woman’s cholesterol levels, particularly in the later trimester. This can lead to a number of potential ailments. Curry leaves help to prevent such ailments by controlling the levels of LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein) and HDL (High Density Lipoprotein) cholesterols that are known to be harmful to your body¹.

2. Helps regulate bowel movements

With fluctuations in their dietary cycles and food intake, it is not uncommon for women to experience digestive difficulties during pregnancy. Curry leaves are a great way to combat these digestive issues, as they are rich in fiber which can greatly improve bowel movements and digestion. They also have antibacterial properties, which greatly help in streamlining the digestive process and maintaining a healthier digestive system².

3. Helps against inflammation

Inflammation is yet another common ailment that may affect pregnant women. It can cause a great deal of pain and discomfort to pregnant women if left untreated, and can potentially lead to unwanted complications. The anti-inflammatory property of curry leaves is proven. Curry leaves greatly help combat them as they contain an alkaloid, which can quite effectively stimulate blood flow and protect intestinal walls from inflammation, as well as bacteria.

Related Reading: 15 Home Remedies For Swollen Feet During Pregnancy

4. Helps with healthy weight loss

Due to the fluctuating food intake and increased nutritional demand during pregnancy, a lot of women might be prone to unhealthy weight gain during pregnancy. This unhealthy weight gain can lead to a number of complications and a great deal of discomfort if left unattended.

Daily consumption of curry leaves may alleviate the development of HFD (high-fat diet) induced metabolic alterations³. As curry leaves greatly help streamline the digestive system and help maintain healthy bowel movement, they help combat this and can be really useful in losing weight in a healthy manner.

5. Helps remove harmful bacteria

It is not uncommon for pregnant women to be susceptible to certain harmful bacteria during the course of their pregnancy, particularly in their gastrointestinal tract. These bacteria, like E. Coli and Salmonella, can cause complications with digestion and congenital diabetes, and can even potentially harm your baby. As per a study, curry leaves contain Carbazole, which helps clear out such harmful bacteria and can greatly help prevent such ailments.

In addition to the benefits listed above, curry leaves can also offer a number of other benefits outside of pregnancy. For instance, being rich in vtamin A, consuming curry leaves can greatly help improve eyesight. Another example would be when doctors sometimes recommend curry leaves for skincare, as it helps heal wounds, treat burns, as well as heal skin eruptions.

Related Reading: 11 Easy Tips Glowing Skin During Pregnancy

Side Effects Of Curry Leaves During Pregnancy

Like all other foods, it is worth keeping in mind that even curry leaves may only prove beneficial if consumed in moderate amounts. Having anything in excess, even curry leaves can lead to unwanted side effects that can adversely impact your health.

Fortunately, there aren’t many such side effects of curry leaves to speak of. However, there have been observations of certain issues that arise when curry leaves are consumed in excess. These include high blood sugar levels, unhealthy cholesterol levels, and difficulties with digestion. Excessive consumption of curry leaves can also deteriorate the roots of the hair and bring about hair fall.

Related Reading: 12 Home Remedies To Treat Hair Fall After Delivery

How To Include Curry Leaves In Your Pregnancy Diet?

As you may already know, curry leaves are usually used as additives on dishes in order to enhance their flavor. They are seldom used as a dish in itself. That being said, there are still a lot of things you can do with them in order to include them in your pregnancy diet.

There are a lot of recipes you can find online for a lot of popular dishes that make use of curry leaves. Usually, having but one such dish per day ought to suffice to meet your nutritional requirement from curry leaves.

These dishes are sure to be rich in both nutrition as well as taste. The antioxidant content of curry leaves is high. You can increase the nutritional value of a fresh glass of vegetable juice by adding 8-10 curry leaves to it. 

In addition to food items and dishes, you can also find recipes for many unique concoctions and brews revolving around curry leaves, conceived solely for the purposes of nutrition and health.

While these concoctions may not be able to boast the same tastes like the food mentioned earlier, they are extremely rich in terms of nutrition and are sure to make a wonderful addition to your pregnancy diet.

Precautions To Be Taken While Consuming Curry Leaves

As mentioned earlier, curry leaves are quite safe to consume, and do not have many side effects or risks to speak of; at least not when they are consumed in moderation. That being said, you can never be too safe, and there are always a few more precautions you can take. A few such precautions to keep in mind regarding curry leaves are:

• Be sure not to consume them in excess. It is highly advised that you consult a dietician before incorporating them into your pregnancy diet, and determine the ideal amount you ought to consume per day
• Be sure to clean them properly before consuming or using them for cooking a particular dish
• Make sure the leaves are fresh, and that you purchase them from a trusted, reliable source     

Related Reading: Eating Salads During Pregnancy- Importance, Benefits, And Precautions

How Many Curry Leaves To Eat Per Day?

The amount of curry leaves you to require every day can vary quite a bit from person to person. As such, the best approach would be to consult your doctor or dietician on the matter to get a more informed, personalized opinion.

That being said, the general advice is that one ought to consume around eight to ten curry leaves per day for maximum nutritional value. Curry leaves also contain significant amounts of carbohydrates. Therefore, overconsumption of curry leaves could result in blood sugar imbalances. 

Incredible Uses Of Curry Leaves During Pregnancy

Aside from the many health benefits curry leaves have, they can also be used as a natural remedy for several common pregnancy-related issues. Two bowls of curry leaves need to be dried under the sun, ground and sieved. store it in an airtight container.

• To beat morning sickness and nausea, consume 1/4 -1/2 tsp of it first thing in the morning
• Stir 12 tbsp. curry leaf powder into a glass of buttermilk and drink it. It provides fast relief from flatulence
• For boosting immunity, heat ghee and add curry leaves and turmeric powder. Boil and cool. Strain and consume the ghee
• For stomach pain, wash a few curry leaves; tear them, and add them to two glasses of boiling water. Boil it till it is reduced to one-fourth quantity (half a glass). Strain and drink

There are many nutritional benefits to curry leaves, but unfortunately, they have not been classified as superfoods. Curry leaves are a wonderful addition to your pregnancy diet and are sure to give you a number of health benefits. As such, many doctors even recommend curry leaves for baby growth. Being rather easily available, and offering a great deal of versatility in how you can prepare them, curry leaves are also rather easy to incorporate into your daily intake. Just make sure you are consuming them in moderation.

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