Why cant I eat Licorice?

[Feijoa Mum]

Things are a bit ummm shall we say backed up at the moment and I heard that soft black licorice is good to get things moving again.

I have just googled to see if it is indeed true and it says it is not recommended for pregnant or breastfeeding women.
It had a whole heap of reasons why, that kinda went over my head so anyone know why its not so good? In Plain English please

[MummaSue]

EEkk, I hope that's not true because I have eaten licorice a couple of times and I'm b/f!!

Subscribing to see is you get any response about this!!

Sue x

[Miss H]

The only thing I know about is that liquorice will raise your blood pressure which isn't good when pg.

[LimeSlice]

Messes with your hormones basically and cause all sorts of issues with potassium levels and sodium retention ...Which lead to electrolyte disturbances which all cause issues with heartbeats irregular heartbeats and Blood pressure

[MummaSue]

I just went and googled it too and came up with a couple of things - pure licorice or licorice extract isn't recommended when pregnant or b/f because it can raise blood pressure in pregnancy (as Miss H has pointed out) and also reduce the quality and quantity of breastmilk (apparently). But eating licorice sweets seems to be ok because often it's not real licorice anyway, but anise which is used to flavour it.

I think you should be ok.
Sue x

[Feijoa Mum]

pheww thats ok then. As long as I dont OD on it we should be good. Thanks ladies

[MummaSue]

I'd just check the ingredients on the packet hun xxxx

[AliBaby]

Geez I didnt know this and i used to eat chocolate bullets by the bucket load when I was breastfeeding. Loved the stuff!

[Daydream Believer]

I ate a fair bit when I was pregnant & afterwards with DD for the same reason. The OB said to try that before stool softeners

[krysalyss]

re: real licorice can be found in dutch licorice lollies which is also often salty.

[Visitor7]

There's an interesting article on ninemsn this about morning about this. Title reads "Skip licorice during pregnancy for healthier kids". Not sure that I can put the link up, but it's on ninemsn.

[Tuesday's Child]

The research that the ninemsn article refers to cautioned against "excessive intake" of licorice in pregnancy (more than 500g per week). It's believed that a constituent of (pure) licorice allows higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol to cross the placenta and this can affect brain development.

I had no idea about this while I was pregnant. I went through periods of eating a couple of small pieces of soft licorice to help with constipation.

[krysalyss]

Maybe instead try drinking lots of water and eating lots of fruit/vegetables. This helped me after birth when things are a little sensitive.

[Jennifer13]

I would very much doubt the licorice sweets we buy use very much real licorice extract anyway, so I doubt you'd have a problem.