Pregnancy May Increase Vulnerablity to Eating Disorders

Pregnancy and breastfeeding make women hungry. That is only natural and necessary and it is absolutely essential that women feed their hunger during these times. We do, though, have to watch out for behaviors that aren’t feeding physical hunger, but something else.

Pregnancy may make women more vulnerable to binge eating disorder. Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health conducted a long-term study of 100,000 pregnant Norwegian women. They saw an increase in binge eating disorders beginning during pregnancy.

According to the researchers, binge eating is different from the cravings pregnant women often have. People with the disorder eat large amounts of over a set period of time and say they feel out-of-control while eating. Unlike bulimics, binge eaters don’t usually purge through vomiting or laxative use. Past studies suggest that eating disorders usually go into remission during pregnancy.

Women enrolled in the study who already had the disorder commonly had their symptoms continue during pregnancy. Not only that, but new cases were more likely to develop during pregnancy than at other times during a woman’s life. The condition does not go away after the birth.

The researchers will now track the impact of eating disorders like binge eating, on mothers and their children. They want to find out if there is an impact on birth weight, emotional and physical infant development, eating and weight patterns during childhood and adolescence.

The study appears in the August 2007 issue of Psychological Medicine.