Early pregnancy: Is it normal to be more sensitive to smells and tastes?

Women who have recently discovered that they are expecting a baby, and even those who merely suspect they are pregnant, may also have noticed a related pregnancy sign. You may be more sensitive to smells and tastes, and wondering if that is normal. 

Heightened senses during pregnancy

You may smell the fish aisle from the other side of the supermarket, avoid Costa Coffee, or want to vomit the minute you walk into a room in which someone is smoking a cigarette. It is not just that you suddenly dislike certain tastes and smells, you can actually smell better than you could before you got pregnant. Even the faintest smells become painfully obvious.

A similar thing may be happening to your sense of taste everything is amplified. That isn't the only thing, though. You may feel like your taste buds have been altered, and foods you once loved now actually taste different. Even when you are not eating, you may have a metallic taste in your mouth. Being pregnant opens up a whole new world. Actually, you may feel like a bit of an alien. Heightened senses combine "nicely" with morning sickness another pregnancy symptom we don't know the exact cause of, but that probably has something to do with pregnancy hormones.

Three quarters of all pregnant women suffer from pregnancy nausea and vomiting, and most of them have clearly identifiable triggers. The triggers don't have to be the same for every pregnancy a particular woman experiences, and they don't have to be things that are demonstrably bad for a growing fetus. Yet, many people speculate that the combination of a more sensitive sense of smell and morning sickness serve a natural purpose: to protect the unborn baby from substances that may harm it.

As morning sickness starts becoming less invasive usually at the end of the first trimester of pregnancy that pesky sense of smell may also become more like it was before you got pregnant, or at least it may not be as noticeable as it was before. Interestingly, the baby's internal organs will have formed by the time those two pregnancy signs tend to improve, and there is less of a danger that external influences will significantly harm the baby's chance of survival.

Are you pregnant?

Women who are trying to conceive often pay attention to every little sign that may indicate that they are pregnant. If your nose seems to have picked up super powers, you are not necessarily pregnant. It could be that the hormone that dominates the luteal phase (progesterone) has the same effect on your nose that pregnancy does.

READ Hyperemesis Gravidarum: More Than Morning Sickness

You will know for sure that you are pregnant when you have a missed period and then get a positive pregnancy test. In the meantime, there are many other early pregnancy signs around that may give you a clue. The morning sickness we already mentioned is an obvious and pretty reliable one. What else should you be watching out for? Here are a few other early pregnancy symptoms:

• Extreme fatigue that makes it hard to get through the day without a nap. Early pregnancy fatigue is not unlike the fatigue many people feel as they are about to come down with the flu, and it often appears before a woman's period is due.
• Sore or tender breasts are very common during early pregnancy, but they have a downside: this pregnancy symptom is also a premenstrual symptom most women experience right before their period starts.
• Bloating and cramping have much the same problem that you encounter with tender breasts until you miss your period, there is no way of telling whether it is a pregnancy sign or just a warning that you are about to menstruate.
• Mood swings can definitely indicate pregnancy. They are, in fact, a much more reliable sign of a possible pregnancy than bloating, cramping, or sore breasts. If you don't usually cry or get angry for no apparent reason but this is exactly what is happening to you now, you may well be expecting a baby.