Loose poo while pregnant (second trimester). Feeling quite stressed about it.

[MadamAnt]

I posted before about this a while ago, but I'm feeling quite worried about it and thought I'd offload on here.

I've been doing loose poos for quite a while now (maybe a couple of months). It used to be on and off, but now it's every day. There has also frequently been blood (generally fresh red blood) on the poo. I've been to the doctor twice. They finger-checked my arse and said the blood was almost certainly from piles.

I'm also booked in for a routine appt with a gastroenterologist in about 2 weeks time as I have previously had mild Crohn's disease. The symptoms I'm having now are nothing like the symptoms I had when I had a flare up of CD (it was all upper-gastric pain...no dodgy poo). I really don't feel like my current poo woes are related to Crohn's disease.

Anyway, I'm literally lying awake at night freaking out that I might have bowel cancer. I've always had pretty good poos, so I feel this is quite out of the norm for me, plus I feel that I "ought" to be constipated while pg, rather than "loose".

Can anyone tell me tales of persistently loose poo while pg? Esp 2nd trimester?

Piles can make your poo bloody and if they go untreated it can go on for ages. Please try not to worry. Bowel cancer is so so so unlikely and in any event often exhibits itself though alternate loose stools and constipation rather than a consistent loose-ness. Your body is undergong a massive change and it sounds like a perfectly normal response to those changes.

Me! When I was pg with dd I had diarrhoea for a while before she was due.

When I told the mw she just said 'I hope you havent caught a bug'. I didnt have blood but I didnt have piles either.

Once I had had dd I was back to normal.

Thanks SusieD. You sound wise and sensible

Laura - thanks for your post too! Did you have it as early as the 2nd trimester though? Damn google seems to have quite a bit of info re: 1st and 3rd trimester diarrhoea, but nothing about 2nd trimester....

I had this.

Don't think it was until the 3rd trimester but defo had the squits virtually everyday.

I put up with it for a while and thought it was just one of the many weird things that happen to you when you're PG.

I always needed to go after eating and not just after a big meal. The final straw came when I had a ham sandwich and it upset my tummy.

So one evening I gave NHS direct a call and they told me to go to the labour ward. Which was lucky because they discovered I had PIH (pregnancy induced hypertension). So afetr that I practically stayed in hospital until the baby was born.

The consultant said that diarrhoea isn't a known symptom of high Bp and said she doubted the two were linked at all.

I gave a poo sample and there was no infection or anything nasty so they just put it down to being PG.

Thinking about it, I reckon I was quite stressed at the time and I think that might have played a part in the raised Bp and the upset tummy. It might have been IBS.

How's your Bp and are you stressed?

Thanks stripey My blood pressure is low (very low actually!) but I'm definitely feeling quite stressed. Whole family have had lots of minor bugs for blimming months and I've not been sleeping well (kids waking up + worrying about my poo!). It could well be a vicious circle of stress/squits.

Any evening crowd input?