Have I damaged my baby?!!!

[Meandyou150]

Ok, ok I'm having another panic

I'm 33 weeks pregnant - and I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes at 27 weeks. Since then stupidly I've been living off no added sugar squashes, no added sugar chocolate and Splenda etc

Now I'm terrified as the squashes I've poured down my neck for week contain saccharin, aspartame and stevia! Now all of those are apparently not ideal to take ok pregnancy.

I should have researched more I know- but I was just so concerned at avoiding the sugar , I didn't think of anything else.

Have I damaged my baby ?!! :(

Who says you can't have these things or that they damage babies?! I've not heard that!

Where have you read you're not allowed those things?

Well I read online that saccharin particularly is advised against during pregnancy- as it can pass through the placenta :( also stevia is unproven for safety

A lot of scaremongering nonsense. It is ok to have them

I drank nothing but sugar free squash for both of my pregnancies, I'd never heard of them being harmful to unborn babies.

I fretted about everything when I was pregnant, but you'll be fine, you haven't harmed your baby.

Stevia is made from the leaves of the stevia plant. Basically, a good rule of thumb is to ignore everything but the NHS website - there is far too much scaremongering out there with no clinical evidence at all.

You can read a lot of shit online, on here too. Doesn't mean any of it is true.
Sweeteners have never been shown to have an adverse affect on anyone, al the hype is just that.

I think there is an important difference between something that is proved harmful and something that hasn't been proven safe. As I understand it many sweeteners have not been proven safe during pregnancy, which is why many health practitioners advise against them. I personally would avoid them ( in normal non-pregnancy times aswell, but that's a personal preference!), but they're hardly a proven carcinogenic. I can't imagine a few orange squashes over the last few weeks would have done you or baby any harm whatsoever.
I'd suggest you speak to your mid-wife or diabetes support person to get more clarity on what you should and shouldn't be having, and avoid any more sugar replacements in the meantime.
But the be honest, though I do think we should all do everything we can to keep ourselves and babies healthy, realistically we all know that people do seriously bad stuff during pregnancy and still have perfectly healthy babies. They're tough little mites!

You understand wrong. Sweeteners have been proven safe, in that study after study after study have failed to find any single mechanism of harm.
And since you can't ethically experiment on foetuses, no direct studies have been done. However we know how bodies and babies etc work and we can extrapolate from the data available to say that sweeteners are no more or less harmful in pregnancy than sugar.

Please don't give poor advice based on nothing more than unfounded hype. Telling OP to avoid sugar replacements is not appropriate.
Your post amounts to: "well its awful stuff but you probably will be fine" which is unhelpful and will only fuel unfounded worry.

They are totally fine.

You would be better off training your palate away from as many sweet foods generally. But that's just a general thing. We all eat far too much sweet food and, if we ate it at sensible levels then (GD aside) we wouldn't need sweetners.

You haven't harmed your baby.

You're fine - no harm done.

Stevia is absolutely fine, saccharin is ok and aspartamane is only toxic if you eat kilos of it purified.

The only proven 'harm ' sweeteners do is to mimic the same metabolic responses your body has to sugar (I.e brain thinks, sweet! And releases some of the same hormones)

You are fine. Relax and follow your GP's GD diet plan. i second others who say the nhs website has the most sensible and peer reviewed advice.

:( worrying is not good for you! You have not harmed your baby, relax and well done for switching from sugar!

I also would say the NHS website has the most clear and non scaremongering I'm looking at you BabyCentre advice.