Major food aversions - first tri

[moondip]

Hello, all
I am a vegetarian and prior to getting pregnant I would love very diverse dishes rich with veggies and things like lentils and beans. I've never been a picky eater (other than choosing to become a vegetarian a few years ago). Fast forward to now, and I'm 9+2 weeks pregnant, and I have lost my interest in all the colourful and nutritious foods I would usually regularly eat. I can literally stomach bread, potatoes, cheese, pasta, crisps... All the carby and beige stuff. The most nutritious food I can manage is an apple or some grapes here and there. I have managed some veggies when they're pizza toppings and have managed a couple of veggie kormas from the Indian, but even that was a couple of weeks back now, and I feel like I'm getting less and less tolerant for more complex/nutritious foods as the weeks go on.

I had my booking app with a midwife yesterday where I expressed that I felt disappointed and even quite guilty that I'm not able to eat my usual, quite nutritious diet. She did say it's normal and that, at the end of the day, at this stage we need to be getting calories from food at a bare minimum while supplements can pick up the slack for us not eating as well as we might wish. But what I'm really worried about is this not shifting as I go into second tri/later pregnancy. By the way, this is my first pregnancy! So, has anyone had similar aversions and found that they've gone back to "normal" after a few weeks?

Thanks & have a great day

Hi lovely, please don't feel guilty, this is so normal! Your baby will get everything it needs from you, no matter what your intake is they are very well capable of getting what they need. Think women with HG who take in the absolute bare minimum and their babies do just fine. It won't last forever, and midwife is correct to just eat whatever you can at this stage. Beige carbs will do the job. Whatever it takes to keep it down. You mentioned maybe being able for apples and grapes. It can help to have them ice cold so keep them in the fridge and nibble away on them. I found apple and peanut butter became a safe food for me when I struggled with much else. You just do what you have to do to get by and in the next few weeks it'll improve. In my experience there's no point forcing it or you'll just develop a hatred for those foods more longterm. Hang in there, and congratulations!

Don't feel bad, it is really normal for a lot of woman and your body is capable and will feed the baby on anything.
I had major food aversions in my first pregnancy and am now about 13 weeks in my second pregnancy and they are even worse.
I'm not vegetarian but my 'able to eat' foods are very similar to yours. I can't remember exactly when I started feeling better in my first trimester but it was sometime in the second trimester.
I also felt better earlier in pregnancy then got much worse before feeling better.
It should get easier but if you have really bad nausea you can talk to your midwife or GP against anti nausea tablets.

I think a lot of women have a more starchy beige diet in the first trimester. I ate a lot of plain chicken and oven chips, jacket potatoes, toast, cornflakes, crisps. I tried to have a fruit smoothie every day so I could tell myself I was having some nutrients. It would take me all day to get through a glass of it!

Green apples settled my stomach though, so I did stick to those as well.