Hypersensitive sense of taste/smell

[TerriB]

This may seem like a bloody obvious question, but I have never suffered from this in my previous pregnancies - Is it normal to suffer from a intense dislike of strong smells and tastes during early pregnancy, even if you have previously liked them? And does it go away?

I cannot stomach strong smells like garlic and curry, and the thought of eating a curry or a kebab (things I absolutely LOVED in the past) makes my stomach churn!! It's horrible and quite annoying as I am having to rethink all my meals, as most of the things I cooked in the past where quite intense in the flavour department!! Also, my husband still wants to eat these things but I can't even sit in the same room as him when he is. Please tell me it wears off, I don't think I can stand 9 months of eating incredibly bland food.

I love coffee, mushrooms, curry, chilli, fish - well anything really but went off all of the above when pregnant and was just the smell not the taste, x2b had no choice whatsoever - they made me feel so yucky that I would have murdered him if he even thought of cooking anything near me.

Mushrooms were the worst - they smelt really earthy and funnily enough are the only thing (other than olives) which DD refuses to eat.

You get over it afterwards and things taste all the yummier.

Think it may have something to do with the babies digestion though - chinese used to give her wind and she would wriggle around inside me and now she parps for GB if she eats chinese!!

TerriB - I went off most strong smells and tastes during the first 14 wks - couldn't drink tea, coffee or eat curry, garlic etc. This passed and I am now happily eating everything and anything!

I had horrible smell aversions when pg with ds1 and it contributed a lot to my hyperemesis. Dh had to stop using his deodorant as I would puke with the smell. It extended to things like the smell of raw vegetables in the supermarket - I had to go in the other door and just not buy any or cook any. Carrots were the worst but everything was really heightened. It got better after about 18/20 weeks (and lots of drugs). Teabags as well, from memory. Funny thing, pregnancy.

Thanks for your replies, hopefully it is something that will wear off!! Funny you should mention deoderant, this morning dd had a poo, and I squirted the air freshener, and nearly puked - it was worse than the smell of poo to me!!

I spent most of the first part of my second pregnancy with my T-shirt/jumper pulled up over my nose because there were so many nauseating smells about. The bloke next door had a diesel pick-up and would start it up and go back inside for about 15 minutes while it warmed up nicely - that was the worst! (No nausea at all in first pregnancy so it was a shock.)

Oooh yes. My sense of smell immediately got overkeen when I was pg with ds. The smell of the fridge was overpoweringly awful!
And I LOVE tea but couldn't face it at all. Weirdly drunk coffee instead though I am usually not too fussed about it.

H ah a- TerriB - that is your body getting you ready for all the poo you will have to deal with again, body makes that a nice smell!!!

with ds i couldnt stand the smell of chinese and i even used to cross the road if i knew there was a chinese restaurant near,with dd was the same but with indian food,also with dd i used to avoid public transport as the smell of someones dirty hair used to make me sick,weird!
ps.those things lasted for the first three months till the indigestion stopped