Pregnant women who took two cycles of six daily probiotics which mainly contained a blend of Lactobacillus strains reported that they experienced less nausea, vomiting, and constipation, and an overall better quality of life, than a group of pregnant women who took a placebo, a study appearing in Nutrients found.
 
Nausea and vomiting affect an overwhelming majority of pregnant women, and affect their quality of life during early pregnancy, the authors said. A number of ingredients have been shown to be helpful, however, probiotics are relatively understudied. “
 
“Pregnancy-associated nausea, constipation, stomach upset, bloating, fatigue, etc. have no apparent structural abnormality, hence are referred to as functional gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. Elevated estrogen and progesterone during pregnancy change gut microbiome composition and function, which can significantly impact GI function,” the authors of the study wrote. “Whether probiotics are an option to reduce GI dysfunction and emotional distress, which are regulated by the enteric nervous system, has never been studied.”
 
32 participants in the study were randomized to receive either a placebo or a probiotic supplement containing L. plantarum 299v, L. bulgaricus Lb-87, L. paracasei DSM 13434, L. plantarum DSM 15312, L. salivarius Ls-33, L. brevis Lbr-35, L. acidophilus La-14, B. lactis Bl-04, L. paracasei Lpc-37, and L. casei Lc-11.
 
They were administered the probiotics in six day cycles, with two days between without probiotics.
 
In addition to collecting self-reported outcomes related to GI function and quality of life, the authors conducted shotgun metabolomic sequencing, bioinformatic analysis, untargeted and metabolomic analysis, to see which biomarkers in particular might be associated with any changes observed.
 
Probiotic intake significantly reduced all outcomes, by reducing nausea hours by 16%, nausea times by 16%, and vomit times by 33%. Probiotic intake also significantly improved 15 out of 17 secondary life quality scores measured, and significantly reduced reported levels of constipation.
 
The authors theorized that the probiotics may have attenuated the gut microbiome changes that come as a result of hormonal changes women experience during early pregnancy. “Dramatic changes of sex hormones during early pregnancy can alter the structure of gut microbiota thereby likely contributing to nausea, vomiting, and constipation during pregnancy.” The authors of the study said.
 
They noted that high fecal a-tocopherol levels were significantly linked to low vomiting scores, suggesting that it has predictive values. An abundance of Akkermansia and A. muciniphila were associated with high vomiting times, and it was shown that probiotic supplementation in this study reduced the abundance of these two bacterial strains.