Can pregnant women eat betel nut?

Many people like to eat betel nut because of its stimulating taste, which can make people feel uplifted and give the brain a feeling of euphoria, so some people choose to use betel nut to replace cigarettes. However, this kind of food will also have a certain impact on cell growth. If pregnant mothers want to eat some betel nut, is it appropriate? Will the baby in the belly suffer unnecessary problems due to betel nut?

Can pregnant women eat betel nuts? A study shows that long-term exposure to arecaline in betel nuts and safrole in betel flowers does have a significant inhibitory effect on the survival and growth of umbilical cord vascular endothelial cells. It is better for pregnant mothers not to chew them.

In addition to causing oral cancer, many research reports also show that eating betel nuts can cause cancer in the mouth, whether it is through the mucous membrane or blood, and enters the human body. It poses a cancer threat to the oral cavity, throat, esophagus, stomach, and liver. In addition, a study also found that if pregnant women have the habit of eating betel nuts, the chances of miscarriage, premature birth and other reproductive hazards are greatly increased.

Five years ago, Ge Yingqin, director of the Medical and Environmental Health Research Group of the National Health Research Institutes, conducted a retrospective survey using questionnaires on 186 pregnant women in Pingtung and Taitung. He found that among 62 women with poor pregnancy outcomes, 43% had eaten betel nuts. After excluding the interference of tobacco and alcohol, analysis showed that the probability of reproductive harm among pregnant women who ate betel nuts alone was 2.8 times that of ordinary pregnant women. The year before last, a more rigorous survey was conducted within hospitals, and it was found that the probability of harm increased to 5 times. In addition to the high probability of miscarriage, the birth weight of the babies was also low.

Arecaline and safrole are recognized as the main components of betel nut that cause cancer and cell mutation. If the fetus is exposed to these bad things, it may suffer from deformities, developmental disorders, or even death. However, current research on the effects of betel nut on pregnancy is mostly biased towards animals. As for the effects of eating betel nut on the human reproductive system, except for the discovery of mutations in cervical cells and chromosomes of maternal lymphocytes, the rest is still focused on epidemiology. Kaohsiung Municipal United Hospital is the first to use human umbilical cord blood vessels for experiments.

Their research indicates that short-term administration (30 minutes to two hours) of areca nut and safrole will reduce the tension of human umbilical cord blood vessels, that is, cause vascular relaxation, and the greater the dose, the stronger the effect. This means that short-term administration of these two carcinogenic components of betel nut may actually improve the blood circulation of the fetus and placenta, allowing the fetus to more smoothly obtain nutrition from the mother, but this still needs further research and verification. However, long-term administration of areca nut and safrole (24 to 48 hours) has shown obvious side effects. Not only are the umbilical cord vascular endothelial cells inhibited, but the greater the dose of areca nut, the stronger the effect. It can even poison the cells and cause cell growth to stop, thereby affecting the physiological function of the vascular endothelial cells.

Recent studies have pointed out that gestational hypertension, which often causes high-risk pregnancies, is a vascular endothelial cell disease. They have found that areca nut and safrole do have an effect on umbilical cord vascular endothelial cells. Therefore, the relationship between these two betel nut components and gestational hypertension is worth further exploration.