Q&A: Can eating spicy food during pregnancy hurt my baby?

by Dr. Marjorie Greenfield

I am 16 weeks pregnant and love hot sauce on my food. I had an aversion to hot sauce during the first trimester and didn't eat it but now I love it again. Does this affect the baby in any way?

I don't believe that hot sauce poses any problem for your baby-to-be. Many moms avoid spicy foods in pregnancy because of heartburn, but if that isn't a problem for you, eating spicy foods should not cause any harm. And it turns out that varied foods in pregnancy and during breastfeeding may actually get the baby ready for the foods of your culture . Particularly in breastfeeding, the milk may pick up the tastes of foods ingested by the mom, setting the baby's taste for flavors favored by his family. So eat the flavors that you enjoy, and imagine your little fetus getting some tastes for his future, right now in the womb. How cool is that?!

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